


Ei8ht

by AudeTheThird



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alcoholism, Blood and Gore, Decapitation, Gen, Incest, Other, Psychological Manipulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2013-08-20
Packaged: 2017-12-22 17:09:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 35,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/915842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AudeTheThird/pseuds/AudeTheThird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young writers aren't supposed to go through this kind of drama, not in reality. She's young, an alcoholic and someone is recreating her written murders in a very real way. <br/>Inspired by "Se7en".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Gluttony

**Author's Note:**

> Over-consumption of food, drink, or wealth items to the point of extravagance or waste.

"Will." Jack's brow was drawn, his mouth in a familiar unhappy line. His shoulders were hunched against the cold, and he was bent slightly at the waist to better accommodate the tiny woman standing at his side. "This is Willow Hammond. Willow, meet Will."

"Will and Willow." she said for her greeting. "That's not going to be annoying at all. You can call me Em, it'll make things easier."

"Em." Will didn't meet her eyes, but fixed his gaze on the brightly stained cuff at her wrist. Artist. Right handed. "Hi."

"Em received the correspondence from our killer this morning." Jack continued. "Complete with photographs and co-ordinates. It was addressed to E.M Hart."

"My pseudonym," Em offered. "I'd actually prefer if you called me by that name, Mr. Graham. Everyone else does."

Jack nodded, and motioned for them to both have a seat. "Em has just arrived with the correspondence."

"Why did the killer contact you?"

"Probably because I wrote the instructions for this murder." she kept her golden eyes trained forward as she took her seat, staring determinedly at the thick plastic packet of photographs and dirt samples on Jack's desk.

Will turned his head to stare at her, but Jack took up the battle.

"Ms Hart is an author." he said rather mildly. "She writes thriller novels."

"Oh." he waited a beat. "It took you seven hours to come forward with this information?"

"It took me twenty minutes." she corrected. "Once I realised the victim was an actual victim. I get a lot of staged murders. My fans are morbidly inclined that way."

Will didn't know what to do with that information.

"When I realised that this wasn't - an elaborate staging of Enraptured, I picked up the phone and got in touch with the FBI. I thought maybe Timothy Bell had gotten out of that charming little hospital he'd wound up in, but I'm told he's still there." she rubbed her eyes, her leg started to nervously bounce. "And now I'm going through this again."

Em had straight black hair under a thick beanie, the red marks of glasses had rested on the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were a clear, no-nonsense amber, framed by dark lashes and pale skin. She bore no other interesting features, aside from the fact that she was very short, and quite thin.

"You know of Timothy Bell from several weeks ago." Jack informed him. "The last time someone started a string of murders using Ms Hart's literary works as inspiration, four people died. He went by the 'Enraptured Killer'." It clicked then, for Will, who had heard about the man's brutal attacks but hadn't been directly involved in the case.

"Em was - instrumental, in catching the attacker."

"I was bait." she informed Will in a quiet drawl. "Let's not beat about the bush, Jack."

"You were bait." he nodded. "But you did help a great deal more than you were signed up for."

"It's in my character." she replied smoothly, and forcibly stopped her knee from bopping with her hand. "So, you've both been to the scene, right?"

Will nodded, glancing momentarily at Jack, who affirmed the notion quietly.

"There'll be bugs where her tonsils used to be and dirt under her nails - that dirt will be a clue. It's what got my killer caught, in the end. They'll be of different kinds of mud, one will reveal where the murder was committed." she paused. "There'll be batteries in her uterus you might wanna check for fingerprints."

"Why batteries in the uterus?"

She shrugged.

"You had to be there."

"You wrote about a murder where bugs and batteries go together?" Will murmured.

"Like I said, had to be there. It made sense to m-...my sociopath." she stared at the side of his head for a long second. "Wait a minute. Are you- Will Graham?"

He nodded, and mumbled the affirmative.

"Ah. I've read about you. Clearly, Freddie Lounds has a soft spot for you. I wouldn't worry about her. Everyone knows she's a bitter cow." she scoffed, and got to her feet, digging in her front pocket for her phone. "Do you think this guy will send anything else my way?"

Jack glanced at Will.

"It's possible." he nodded to her. "If so, you've got my number."

"Don't take this the wrong way Jack, but I really wish we weren't that familiar."

"You and I both, Em."

"I'll go and rearrange my life. I'll wait outside." her footwear were heavy duty boots, laced tight around her ankles. They looked disproportionate to the thin calves and bony knees that peeked out from under her skirt. Likewise, the bulky jacket didn't look like it fit her, like it was too big around the shoulders and waist.

"We're going to see Dr. Chilton." Jack told him, as the door swung closed. "He has Timothy Bell in custody. That was the guy who started this, the 'Enraptured Killer'. What did you see there today, Will?"

"I didn't see any sexual intent." he said bluntly, picking a spot on the desk and grimacing at it. "There wasn't any outward evidence that there'd been an obstruction in her... reproductive organs, and there was nothing to suggest any dirt inside her, aside from the stuff on her hands." he paused.

"I saw- I felt - detached. It was like reading instructions. There was an overwhelming sense of - control. He was... very in control of everything. It was all set out. Things were a certain way for a reason. I guess that reason is that they had been scripted. How old is she?"

Jack nodded, as though he was likewise surprised by the author's age.

"She's just turned twenty years old."

"And she wrote that?" It had been something like structured chaos. He could see elements of a story well told but he couldn't feel them; the choice of victim was impersonal; the act of killing is what made their murderer tick.

"She wrote that story about three years ago, now." Jack's eyes went to the shadow at the door. "Tread carefully with her, won't you? She is just a kid. She thinks she's coping but I don't think it's true. The following written works from the aftermath of Timothy Bell had a certain..." he couldn't quite find the word, but Will could sense that it wasn't going to be a good one.

"And you want me to keep an eye on her?" it seemed a responsibility that would be better left to Alana, or maybe Hannibal Lecter.

"Who better?" Jack replied dryly, and rose to get his coat.

The walk to the car was done in silence. It seemed perverse to try and puncture the air with words. Em needed to pull herself up into the big Humvee vehicle Jack used for intimidating purposes, and settled into the backseat.

"So. How's Bella?"

"She's doing just fine. How's Bert?"

"I haven't seen him in about three weeks. He's riding some kind of inspirational wave. I know better than to interrupt."

Jack made a low agreeing noise, and reversed the truck. Will could feel the girl's eyes on him - he could feel her curiosity rapidly inflating. What he didn't understand was the calm in which she kept in the face of the horrific murder she had penned.

"Do I have to interact with Chilton?" she said his name like a disease.

"Dr Chilton will probably make an appearance, yes."

"I hate him."

"He isn't the most charming of people, no."

"He has a superiority complex and I have problems with authority." Will's eyes flicked up to see she was gazing out her window. He hadn't known any body to be so upfront in a long time, but thus was his workplace. "Do I have to be nice, or...?"

"Please be nice." Jack's smile was half cocked. "You know what he's like."

"If he tries to psychoanalyse me, I'll throw a tantrum. He can analyse that." she went on bitterly. "I have never met anyone I've instantly just wanted to punch in the face, before."

"Oh, you too?" Will muttered, causing her to laugh.

She had an odd laugh - she tried to smother it behind her hand, but it was a girly giggle if he'd ever heard one. She glanced at him with a smile but soon turned to stare back out the window.

"Always good to know I'm not alone." she said warmly, and they lapsed into silence.

"Miss Hammond." the doctor gave her chest a friendly smile. "Mr Graham. How good to see you both again." Will didn't quite received the same attention.

"Dr. Chilton," Jack said, perfectly amiable. "As much as I'd like to linger, we are on a schedule."

"Please, right this way." His hand lingered on Em's shoulder, and Will could see that her spine was arched away from it. He smoothed that same hand down to the small of her back, which is when Em skipped to have both Will and Jack between them both. He just smiled; the writer pulled a face like she could smell vomit.

"It must be interesting, you two working together." he continued in a sleazy drawl. "One of you constructs the minds of murderers, and the other enters them. I wonder what a regular conversation for you would be like."

"We talk about you, actually." Em said flatly.

"Oh, you do?"

"Thank you, Dr. Chilton." Jack put his hand out to shake, and Chilton just about walked straight into it. "We can walk from here."

"If you ever need to see me, Miss Hammond - Mr. Graham - you know where I'll be."

"Mmph." was her reply. He shook Jack's hand, offered it to Will, who begrudgingly accepted. When he offered the same hand to Em, she stared at him like he was potentially insane, a brow cocked. She wouldn't touch him if she could help it.

"Don't be bitter. It'll give you wrinkles."

So she smiled, but every inch of it was cold.

"We wouldn't want that, would we?" she said, sweet enough to incur a tooth ache. "So good to see you, Fred."

"Doctor." he corrected.

"You aren't my doctor." she said, and tipped her head at him, head down and ready to charge like a bull.

He made a noise like a light chuckle, though it was blindingly apparent that he had not liked the comment.

"So touchy, Willow." he lifted a hand to her shoulder and she smacked it away. "How irregular."

"Dr. Chilton," Jack said firmly. "We're on the clock, here."

"Of course, of course... I have no doubt I'll be seeing you again." he swung the pointed look onto Will, who determinedly stared forward. The doctor set off at a quick pace, brisk and self important. They were shown through the first gate and told a chair would be waiting for them.

"He always makes me feel like I've been rolling in slime." Em muttered darkly. "Though clearly he's one of your favourite people too."

Will's mouth twitched.

"Was I obvious?"

"Yeah." she glanced at his face, but his eyes were fixed forward. She shrugged and follow suit, staring ahead of her, down the long stretch of hall. "I just had the most intense vision of pulling his jaw out of the socket."

"Now, now." Jack said smoothly. "That kind of talk will get you institutionalized."

"Again." she retorted, but kept her tongue otherwise, following the correct procedures while forcibly relaxing her shoulders.

The walk down the hall seemed to stretch on for several hours. One of the inmates hissed something off-puttingly sexual to Em but her only response to that was to lift her chin and keep walking. Will could see a flush in her cheeks, and the balled fists of her hands. She was tiny beside him, but her emotions were palpable, alive, human, and fierce. He sunk into the feel of her just the tiniest bit to relieve the pressure in the hall.

"Hello, Timothy."

"Ah, Em! Miss me?"

"Endlessly." was her flat reply.

The man was six foot four, thin, with stringy brown hair knotted at the base of his skull. He had no facial hair but a thick white scar on his chin, and one of his arms was held in a sling like position.

"I liked me." he tapped his nose. "Ya know?"

"Yeah, I know."

That flew over both the Agent's heads. They decided to let it slide.

"How's my brother?"

"Coping."

"I'll bet. Mother?"

"Also coping."

"She's getting out of the house now?"

"Last time I checked. Gone back to photography and everything."

"I thought she'd still be a shut in."

"Well, she's doing well for a sixty year old you you tried to kill."

"And if you hadn't of been there, I would've."

"I'm well aware of that, actually."

He was bored, he was anxious, he was depressed. He a blue bruising on one high rise cheek bone, the prints of a hard fist on his face. His dark eyes were shot through with red bolts of sleep depravity, and his hands were long and white, like spiders.

"Timothy, this is Agent Will Graham," she said, inclining her head to one side. "And Agent Jack Crawford. They're my escorts."

"Like you need them."

"You know how it is. I'm not entirely legal just yet."

"Unfortunately not."

"You're not my type." she promptly sat, folding her legs to one side. "How's life?"

"Oh, you know." he sat on the bed, folding his gangly limbs into a neat cross. "I think maybe the word I want is lacking."

"Well, that's what you get for killing four people and kidnapping two." her eyebrows rose at him. "Personally, if we could've gone back, I would've shot you in the head, not the shoulder."

His grin was feral.

"You didn't sign my cast."

"Maybe the balls. That would've been more satisfying"

"Em." Jack put a hand on the back of her chair. "Mr. Bell, we've come because there's a copycat with your signature."

"Good choice of M.O." and he laughed, tipping his head back. "Bet that's doing some pretty interesting things to our little Em, here."

"I don't think so." her gold eyes flashed and she stared, unblinkingly at the convicted killer.

"I know so." he teased.

"I'm far from being your Em." she crossed her legs, and his eyes flicked to the rising hem of her skirt. She was entirely aware, and angled her body at him in a provocative manner, all the while fluttering her lashes, coy. Jack and Will shared a glance. This wasn't the best way to go, but it was apparently working.

"You'd be royalty, if you were mine." he told the line of her boots, the curve of what lay under her skirt. He rose his eyes up her torso to her face, dragging them over her body. She didn't even flinch, she just sat there, unamused.

"Yeah, I'd bet." dry, her voice was so dry. And she was unaffected, so Will could focus.

"We have some questions, Mr. Bell."

"I don't want to talk to either of you. You aren't pretty enough. Well, maybe you." he gave Will another long once over. "Yeah, I could probably deal with you."

"I'm feeling a little neglected, Timothy."

"Oh, no, don't be. I'd deal with him, I'd fuck the liver out of you-" and that was the point in which Jack asked Em to leave.

They found her in the car, both hands around a small travel container. She gulped the remaining dregs of it down and popped two mints in her mouth before they got there. They got in the truck, silent, completive.

"Get what you need?" she asked quietly.

Jack glanced at Will, but the empath retained his silence.

"Yeah, he's a little bit flat, isn't he?"

That made Will turn his face towards her - he alternated by looking at the shoulder of her coat and out her window. She was watching him, though in a somewhat dreamy state - her knees, for example, were parted a little and she was slouched in the leather of the car.

"Flat?" he repeated. "He was empty. Content."

"Not exactly the kind of character you'd think could murder four people and kidnap two." she leaned her heavy head against the seat, sighing heavily. Over the strong smell of mint, Will thought he could smell something suspiciously alcoholic.

"No, not really." he turned back around, rubbing his eyes under his glasses. "He said all the right things in all the right places. But I don't think he did it."

"The DNA under our first victim's fingernails matched his." Jack told them both.

"It was a contaminated source, Jack."

"He confessed, Em."

It seemed to be an old, rehashed conversation, done again and again, many times before. He watched her in the rear view for a second, but she didn't budge from her lazy position.

"People confess under duress." she replied mildly.

"He was found at the crime scene, your crime scene, with a knife in his belt. The same knife that inflicted the four prior victim's wounds."

"Same knife. Different guy."

"He was - attending to himself when you got free, Em."

"Rubbing one out over your mother's unconscious body does not equal murder, Jack."

He refocused on the road.

"He knew details, and he had a motive."

"He knew some details, and his motive was shit."

Will could sense that the logical side of Jack's brain was at war with the detective in him - the psychology was right enough. Unsavoury childhood, documented cruelty to animals; his divorce set him off, the last straw before the camel's back cracked down the centre. But there was something... Safe, about him. He wasn't... vicious enough. He was rather tame, even with goading Em, it was only teasing, only pushing boundaries, not willing to cross them.

"You shot him?" Will realized.

"Twice." she turned her eyes back out the window. "About two inches apart. I shattered his collarbone and scapula. I meant what I said - I would've shot him in the skull if I could've aimed again. First time shooting a gun. You know how it is."

He did.

"So... You found him?"

"I was bait." she reminded him in that same unimpressed, dry tone. "He found me."

"Em was... Momentarily extracted from our safe house."

"Yes, she was. And she shot the bad guy." she swallowed a heavy mouthful and sighed, letting another waft of minty-alcoholic air rush through the car. Will shifted and frowned at the dash, and while Jack seemed to pick the alcoholic scent in her breath he wasn't phased. "I never actually saw his face when he took me, you know. His mother got my guard down and took me around a corner where he put a bag over my head and a gun at my back and told me to move."

"What he said..." Will thought back. "'I liked me'. What did that mean?"

"Oh, that." she blinked at her knees. "After Enraptured... There's Encompassed and Enveloped. Encompassed was half written when he decided to start killing people, so naturally the, ah, train of thought strayed a lil' bit. It was only ment to be a two part book, but I developed a character. His character. Looked like him, spoke like him, talked like him. Didn't really kill like him, but he recognised himself before I did. Probably didn't help his name was an anagram of the actual name. Tom Blithely is Timothy Bell. I wasn't trying when I put that together."

"You made him eternal." Jack told her.

"Yeah, well." she shook the travel container, outwardly disappointed at the emptiness. "It wasn't intentional. And I'm fairly sure he was on the road to infamy without my help, so... My bad, I guess. Drop me off at Harlot's in town, would you, Jack?"


	2. Lust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uncontrolled or illicit sexual desire or appetite.

"Will?" Jack cornered him, swung in front of his stride to keep him from walking. He turned dark eyes out onto the courtyard, where two new faces in police uniform were bickering. "Ed Scarab is the tall one. Theodore Knott is the blonde."

Will could hear them.

"I am just not enjoying life."

"Tell that to these guys."

"Hey, fuck you man-"

"No, fuck you."

"Who are they," Will said very slowly. "And what are they doing?"

"Ms Hart received another correspondence this morning." Jack said darkly. "The police got involved. Her roommate opened the box and panicked, called the police."

Will just rolled his eyes.

"I've also called Dr. Lecter in to help." Jack said, nodding as the sleek black car rolled into parking. "The last time Em was involved with the case she appeared to handle it well. She shot Timothy Bell and managed to subdue him... But she beat him unconscious to do that."

"She panicked." was his half suggestion, half defence.

"No it wasn't." Jack told him, with certain finality.

"He'd killed four people."

"It was with the butt of the gun she'd just shot him with. Twice." Will didn't have a reply to that. "In any case, she responds better to men than to women in matters of the mind." Jack glanced over to where Em was talking on the phone, her shoulders sagging, her face obstructed by a wave of black hair.

"I think they'll be quite a pair."

"Quite." Like she and I would be. Dr. Chilton's words - rather, his insinuations that both of them needed to be locked up - hadn't left him. He profiled psychopaths for a living, but she invented them. There had to be a degree of darkness in her to do that, right?

Hannibal was strolling towards them. A sense of calm rolled over Will like a gentle wave, the way it usually did when Hannibal Lecter entered his personal space. He was detached from it, realizing it wasn't quite his emotion, but he sensed it none the less.

They made their greetings.

"It's been five days since the last body was found." Jack informed Dr. Lecter, who nodded. "I would like you to keep an ear on Willow, over there - she prefers to be addressed as Em."

"Why?"

"Pseudonym. She detaches." Will offered in a mumble, and turned toward the crime scene as the tiny woman hung up from the phone and skipped over to them.

"Hello. I'm Dr. Hannibal Lecter." he held his hand out - she removed her glove with her teeth and shook his.

"Hi. Em." she dropped the glove into her hand, removed the other, and tucked them in her back pocket, all the while going over his nice suit and coat with a quick flick of her golden eyes. "Doctor of?"

"I'm a therapist, these days."

The once over she then gave him was more critical, and lingering. She seemed to find his hands extremely fascinating, and the line of his cheekbones.

"I typically only indulge in therapy of the retail kind." she drawled at him, and looked pointedly at Jack with a pursed mouth.

"Most women tend to." the smile did not reach his eyes, so much as crease the corners. "I find myself inclined to ask how you are feeling about all of this."

"I couldn't tell you." she replied mildly.

"Couldn't or wouldn't?"

"Won't." She made a disconcerted noise and turned to eye the double doors of the town hall. "Shall we get this over with?"

"We shall."

Em was fearless to walk into the room, taking strides to enter before the men. Her eyes swept the surface of the two bodies, lain out on two tables pushed together. She took a moment to breathe deeply, gaze darting to various points in the room, her chin raised, and said:

"I'll put twenty dollars down that says her tongue is missing."

No one would be able to tell until someone had unwound the stitching of the woman's mouth.

The bodies were not touching in any respect - she sighed, went over to them, stepping carefully over lengths of string and FBI members taking inventory. Her arms were folded tightly and she was frowning, gnawing her bottom lip, but comfortable in the rancid atmosphere.

"And this came out of your skull?" Theodore, one of the newly investigating officers said.

Hannibal watched her, Will did his own pacing through, and Jack sent the officer a withering look that flew over his head.

"It did." she kept her eyes trained on the bodies of the twins. She bent to the woman's head to go nose to nose with her, her black locks tucked securely behind her ears. She took her time in inspecting the way in which the killer had sewn the woman's lips closed with a thick length of black twine. Then she stood, and caught Hannibal's eye.

"Incest." she declared mildly.

Will's brow furrowed.

"I see mirrors." he said, just loud enough to have it be considered an audible volume. That caused both Em and Hannibal to turn, to break whatever quiet connection they had obtained. "Twins. His eyes are open, hers are sewn shut. His mouth is open... Her hands are down, his are up. Male, female."

"That would actually play, if you'd read the story." she gave him a faint half smile, and turned back to the bodies. Will could see she was sad, but not entirely upset, by the murder.

"How did you get incest?" Theodore prompted.

"I wrote it to be about incest, that's how." she tipped her head and straightened the rest of her body, glancing over to Will, who met and kept her stare. "His finger will be sent to his wife because he was cheating on her. The ring would've been kept on by the post mortem swelling, and the fact that this man has been hanging by his scrotum for hours." Several of the men flinched.

Dr. Lecter peered at the bruised, stretched sac between the victim's legs.

"Her reproductive organs are missing." she went on. "He's gone in through her back, as not to disturb the picture they make. He thinks it's a service to the world. It's a message, and he wants it neat."

"Which is why the ties on his wrists are in bows." Will nodded, and took slow steps closer to the bodies. "They-... her hands are nailed at her hips... that's for what?"

"Chastity." She paced around to the other side, inspecting the man. "As his have been nailed away because he was the instigator. This is to keep his hands to himself."

"You're kind of twisted, aren't you?" That time is was Ed who belittled her.

The stare she met him with wasn't a glare, but it certainly wasn't kind.

"I'm more than a pretty face." she kept staring until he averted his gaze, shifting awkwardly away. Her smile was supposed to be her own secret, but Hannibal saw it. He would never admit to finding it somewhat endearing of the tiny creature.

Katz started rattling things off at them, some unrelated to the murder so much as trying desperately to figure out who E.M Hart was, and never suspecting a young woman. Em, to all intents and purposes, just hummed her agreement, then gave her a long once over that made her stop talking.

"Have his gums been filed?" she asked mildly.

"I-... I haven't checked."

"Oh." she smiled at the woman, and continued. "The idea was to set them on fire to have Jane and Jon Doe."

"Can't identify them by dental records?"

"Pretty much. There were a few other elements to it. Severed hands to keep the fingerprints, that kind of thing. But I - my killer - decided that he wanted the bodies to be recognised. He wanted everyone to know what these two were up to behind closed doors."

Will peered into the mouth of the male victim as Katz pulled back his upper lip and confirmed his teeth were all filed back into his jaw.

"Gross." Em said, but was mostly fascinated by the worn line of bone.

"Her mouth is sewn shut-" Katz let the lips go, let them smack together. "-Anything nasty we should know about in there?"

"Only that she's minus a tongue." she looked directly at her, expression slightly soft. "My killer didn't think in sexual terms, he thought in riddles. The way he went about these was to make connections only his mind could create, but I could explain. These are - perverse, but they're messages. I was writing about sect who indulged in behaviours that a wider public shied from."

"Enraptured. I read it. I loved it."

She smiled at the praise.

"Thanks."

"You're gonna have to sign it for me, you know that, right?"

"Of course." she nodded.

"What, you know, with the sect and everything," Katz went on, waving her hand at the bodies. "What made you write that?"

"The idea," she said carefully. "Was to open up a floor on which the community could discuss this kind of relationship in a psychological way and not sneer at it, give people an understanding of -"

"You're into incest?" it was Theodore who interrupted her.

"Not just incest. Willing cannibalism, scarification, dom/sub, snuff stuff, you name it." she fixed him with a look that he challenged, but didn't win. "I'm a writer. It's my job to be into it."

Dr. Lecter's eyebrows had risen as she spoke, but smoothed as she came to stand next to him. She, likewise, inspected the swollen scrotum, her brows pulling together.

"Hang on a second. That's- no way. May I have gloves, please?"

"What's wrong?"

She took Will's hand when gloves weren't given to her, and untucked his finger. She drew a line on the thigh of the male victim, smudging what had at first appeared to be a smattering of freckles.

"He's gone in and... drawn on moles." she inspected Will's fingertip. "What the hell kind of psychopath pays attention to that kind of detail?"

"What the hell kind of writer details that kind of thing?" Theodore asked in return. She glared up at him from under her lashes, jaw clicking as she grit her teeth.

"What do you even read? Guns and Babes?"

"Guns and MILFs."

"Oh, do excuse me."

There was a heated moment, then she turned away from him, disengaging, completely ignoring him. He appeared to be confused with this tactic, geared up and ready for a fight, then denied one. It clearly irritated him.

"To his mind, that lack of detail would be- offensive." Will said quietly, taking his hand back. "If you put effort enough in it to mention that the male twin had these moles in this formation, than he will of course include them."

"His attention to detail is phenomenal." she agreed. "This looks exactly like... exactly like what I saw in my head. Which is confronting, in itself, but the fact that it's gone to this extreme..."

"You're unnerved by the freckles?" Hannibal ventured.

"Freckles are details that create a physicality." she murmured, turning to Dr. Lecter but not looking at him. "They're - deformities, imperfections. Blemishes. Hereditary. These are the things that make people people. It gives them a medical history. In my head, I imagined that one of his freckles was cancerous. It wasn't anything in the story itself, but I knew he had cancer. They would've shaved their heads together."

"Sweet." Will noted.

"They were in love." she shrugged one shoulder. "Real and proper and true. Had been for years. They were brought up to love each other, of course they did. They weren't like the others in that sect, though, not really. These two were sweet enough to give you an ulcer, but they were wrong because they were related." she shrugged.

"Probably didn't help they looked alike, either. Any way. I'm going to get some air."

"I will come with you." Hannibal offered, and the line of her shoulders stiffened.

She glanced at Will but he was in a headspace, something she, as a writer, instantly recognised. She could see he had emersed himself in an idea, in a feeling. If his empathy was anything like writing a story, he'd be consumed; he'd ignore everyone until he stepped out of it. Heaven forbid someone jarred him. She pitied the man who did.

She thought that maybe the Dr. was busy studying the dead body while she stood there and privately did her own observing of the profiler. She thought that maybe she might be able to sneak away and have a moment to herself.

She was wrong. The second they were out of earshot, he engaged.

"I'd like to enquire as to how you are coping." Dr. Lecter studied the stillness in her body, the way she met his stare head on without any reservations. "It cannot be easy, to have been taken advantage of in this way."

"I wouldn't call it that." she commented easily. "Some one, at least, is paying attention. Isn't that what writers want?"

"Isn't it?" he waited a beat. "These are the images from your mind. You've created these stories and put them into the world."

"Under a name that isn't mine." she replied with her eyebrow cocked. "For people who have an interest in morbidity, gore and a few spare hours."

"Is that what you have? An interest in morbidity and gore? The reasoning of murderers?"

She grinned at him, but it was an echo of an expression. She had no feelings but contempt for his questions, though she tried to mask that. She appeared to be trying to scare him with her lack of answers. On a lesser man it might fly - actually, he'd seen the after shock of what her stare could do, reducing them to confusion, discomfort. But he was not, and had never been, a lesser man.

He was nonplussed.

"Isn't that what your friend Will has?" she asked lightly. "An insight into murderers' reasoning?"

"He calls it their design."

"An appropriate word."

He hummed a short agreement.

"In any case," she dismissed him, digging for her phone. "We both get paid to do it, so why not?"

"Would you say that you're impressed by the detail put into the... " he waved his hand at the hall. "Replications?"

"Eh." She started typing away at her phone with a shrug. He thought it best to redirect his line of questioning, try and come at her in a roundabout way.

"Why do you think you write, Ms Hart?"

"I don't know how to do anything else, Dr. Lecter."

He paused, watching her type, her thumbs tapping over the keyboard with practised ease. He imagined that she could very well type and send her message without having to look, she was purposely avoiding his eye. There was a long pause in which she blindly stared at the screen, the pretense weak.

"Do you often design murders when you are feeling angry?"

"'Design murders'." she commented with a wry smile. "Words are some of the first things we learn. It's natural to chose it as the... most comfortable form of self expression. Some people draw, some people paint, some people sculpt. Others write."

"You're an artist, then."

"What makes you say that?"

"Writers are artists with a written word." he told her calmly. "Painting a picture can be done with sound or word as much as paint."

"Beautiful sentiment." she said, and sounded genuinely impressed. He nodded his thanks. "Though I'd be careful not to show my sentiment around here. I think that it might not be justly appreciated." She brought him up only to shove him down, though he wasn't sure if she was aware of that or not.

"Do you think that, by publishing your books, you're expunging some of the images in your mind? Sharing them with others without having to admit to them?"

She scoffed, as though he were being too psychological, too deep. He was applying it a little thickly and he recognised that. Still, he didn't appreciate the bored stare he received for his efforts.

"No."

"Do these stories live with you?"

"I spend months considering murders - penning the structure, flushing out the characters, 'designing' the motives." there was a particularly emphasis on 'designing' that made him feel she mocked him. "I spend my free time sussing through the details internally. I vocalise histories with friends and gauge their reactions. I spend a lot of my life on these stories. Of course they stay with me."

"And the fact that these people are dead because of it..."

"I don't think so." she wagged her phone at him. "This guy would've killed without any help from me. Maybe not these three people in particular, but some other undeserving bunch."

"You sound very certain."

She retracted her phone to her bag, shuffling aside a large travel container and a notepad full of words.

"Serial killers aren't born to kill," she informed him, matter-of-fact. "But they're inclined. He would've found some other inspiration. Another excuse. God, Muhammad, daddy touched me, momma beat me, I have no friends, I got paid to do it. I am not guilty of anything."

He nodded, agreeing.

"And how do you feel, when you kill in your novels?"

"They're born dead." she shrugged, and met his gaze with her hand still in her bag. "I constructed their deaths before the rest of their lives were detailed. These people who look like them, who were in a relationship like them... They were born first to live."

"And now they are dead," he said gently.

"And it makes me-" her brow came down. "Hang on, how did you do that?"

"Do what?"

She narrowed her eyes on him, an annoyed, but playful curl on her lip. He felt they were playing a game, and he could see she was almost about to show him her cards.

"Oh, you're good."

"Thank you." he offered her a smile of his own. "How old are you, may I ask?"

"You shouldn't ask a woman her age, Dr. Lecter." the tightness of her mouth denoted a particular frustration about that, but she still wore a smile. "I'm twenty."

"And you've written how many books?"

"Six in total."

"That's quite a feat, for a person so young. Your parents must be impressed."

"I imagine they would be, were they alive." The smile was gone. He imagined those cards were being locked in a vault in her head, somewhere.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

He truly was.

"Thank you."

"Did you lose them young?"

"I was ten."

"Old enough to understand, then."

"Yes, I was."

"Was it, traumatic?"

"It's always going to be traumatic when your parents die." she said with a bitter venom that wasn't entirely aimed at him. "Now, don't take this personally, but I'd rather bang my head against a wall than engage in this kind of psychiatry."

"It's only psychiatry if I medicate you."

"Got anything fun?" she teased, and he smiled, turning his face away for a moment. "'Sides, I'm used to self medication. Hope you don't mind." she unscrewed the lid of the container and took several long draws of what was inside. He couldn't quite see, but he didn't have to. The alcoholic burn in his nose just about shoved him over.

He noted she was drinking a straight beverage, and barely flinched as it coated her insides. She screwed on the lid, popped two mints in her mouth, and pulled a face.

"That, has gone straight to my head. Okay. We can go back in now." and she turned around to the crime scene without a second's hesitation.


	3. Greed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The excessive desire and pursuit of material possessions.

They assembled first, in Jack's office. Ed Scarab and Theodore Knott were in a corner, heads together, quietly discussing the football scandal that had been the topic of conversation all week. Em was very quiet, with her head in her hands, eyes shut tight, feet tucked under her rear in an arm chair in front of Jack. Dr. Lecter was impeccable as always in a blue grey suit and lavender tie, legs crossed neatly, casting a level look over the police officers, his lips drawn tight together.

Will was sleep worn, still reeling from his night terrors.

"The correspondence came." was Jack's how-do-you-do. "More photos. And this time, a pair of eyes."

He paused.

"I see."

"Apt word choice." Em drawled from behind her hands.

"What do you see?" Jack asked him, spreading the photos on the table like a macabre fashion shoot. He could see gold, glittering jewels, a thick quilted coat. He could see a direct beam of light playing on all the reflective decorations the dead body wore, twinkling under the developed gloss on the paper.

But there were echoes - the two voices of murderers in his mind. On one hand he heard their murderer, the real live one who committed these acts for Em and her attention. On the other, the pointed drawl of Tom Blithely, of Timothy Bell, the book killer who they were based on.

"What..." he said slowly, directing it to Em. "...Do you see?"

"I don't know." she cracked open blood shot eyes, looking haunted, old and tired. "It doesn't make any sense. This isn't in chronological order. This murder was -... this comes from a different book. It's not in the  _Encompassed_  series, it's not Tom Blithely. The others went in order and were done by the same character. This is weird."

"Wait, now it's weird?"

"Mr. Scarab, kindly keep you mouth closed in my office." Jack didn't bother looking at him, studying both the writer and the profiler. "Em?"

" _'A golden crown for the king who would rule no men, and govern no land'._ It was my first published piece." her scowl intensified. "It was satisfying to kill him."

"Do you think before you speak?" Theodore muttered.

"Do you?" she barely graced him with an unimpressed look. Jack's much more heated glare shut both him and his co-worker up, made them shrink into their corner. Em took a moment to study the photos, her eyes lingered on parts of the pictures that showed the bubbled and cracked skin, before seeking out Will. "What do you see?"

He shook his head. The echoes were at war.

"I'm gonna need to see it." he murmured. "In person."

Jack's frown intensified.

"Well you can't. This is all we have. We have a team working on the remains of the hotel this man was killed in. The bastard set it on fire and burned it to the ground."

"I didn't write that." Em volunteered, and deflated slightly. "This isn't like the others." her hand braced the throbbing migraine pounding at her right temple.

"This novel - the themes - the murder itself - it's not-..."

"It's not internationally famous." Jack finished.

"No, it isn't." she agreed easily. "It isn't written under my pen name either. Which is... worrying. There are only a few people who can claim they know that Willow Hammond is E.M Hart. Most of my fans think I'm a man in my forties."

"The way you write is evolved." Hannibal offered. "I have begun  _Enveloped_."

"Thoughts?" she quirked a smile in his direction, her blood shot eyes half lidded.

"I am enjoying it." his smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. "I have just surpassed the second murder by your Tom Blithely."

"My Tom?"

"Is he not your Tom?"

"If he's anyone's, he's mine." she agreed, and turned her eyes back to the king's blood covered face. "He looks... familiar."

"He should be. That's Nathan Gold."

"You're joking."

"That makes a lot of sense, actually." Em considered it. "Nathan Gold... He just won TIME's man of the year, right?"

"And he disappeared not long after, the same day."

Em swallowed a heavy mouthful of what felt to her like carpet.

"Well that's where all the detail went. Spends his life trying to reach the top. Gets an hour in. Then gets offed. That's pretty much the premise of that murder."

Hannibal wondered where exactly the girl got her ideas from.

She could certainly paint a pretty picture in his head, and her killers were well flushed out, the killings scripted, but with certain plausible things going astray. Certain victims behaved in decided ways that he had experienced, so he wondered to what degree she knew the mind of victims personally.

"What's different about this?' Jack prodded.

"The robes are store brought, for example, and while they're very nice, they aren't - blue, for starters. They don't fit him well. They don't make him look a royal highness. They are quilted, not velvet. The bracelets from his wrists are missing. His hands have been nailed down, not seared into place. There are only four rings instead of ten and one of them is silver. What, did he get lazy?"

"The details are more personal." Will repeated. "These rings - don't properly fit him. They aren't his. Nathan Gold graduated nearly thirteen years ago... This is a Class of 2010 stamp."

Em's brows contracted. She looked at Dr. Lecter.

"This doesn't make any sense." she told him in an annoyed way, and rounded on Will. "Tell me what you see."

"I don't share."

"Well I'm typically all about sharing."

"Over-sharing." Theodore muttered, and Em shot him a very dirty look.

"That's it. That is  _it_." she got to her feet, tipping dangerously to one side. "I have had it up to here with your bullshit. Get out."

"What?"

"Get up. Get  _out_."

"Ah, you can't-"

"I can and am, buddy."

"You're a kid, how the hell do you think you can tell me what to do?" was the disgusted reply. "You can't just stamp your foot and get your way. You might be famous, but that doesn't give you magic powers."

She appeared to take that as a challenge, her eyebrows shooting up, hip popped to one side.

"Magic powers, huh?" she just about hissed at him. "I'll give you  _magic fucking powers_. You  _clearly_  have no idea who I am."

"No." he scoffed. "Just because you wrote a book doesn't mean I know who you are, princess."

"Princess." she nodded, pulling an unattractive face. "Magic powers. Uh huh. Please, if there's anything you wanna say, don't hold back."

"Wasn't gonna."

" _Clearly_." she promptly left the room, digging for her phone. Will and Jack shared a look - Jack sighed, glared at the rookie cop, and followed after her in a stride.

"Em, there's no need for that..." which only served to have Theodore looked utterly bewildered, for a second, then bend at the waist and shut his mouth.

Dr. Lecter stared at the cop for a long second, then turned his eyes up to Will.

"How are you, Will?"

"Seen better days."

"Have you been sleeping?"

"No." he swallowed, ventured closer to the pictures. They were individually in bags, so he sorted through the loudly crackling masses with no concern over fingerprints. "Have you had a look at these?"

"Not closely, no." He got up, buttoning his suit, and peering at them by Will's side. "Is this case getting into your dreams, Will?"

"Not exactly." was his tight reply. He uncovered a picture depicting the man's burned scalp, the bubbling skin and flesh barely present over the blindingly white skull and ring of shiny gold around it. His hair was in thick black chunks on his shoulders, and there was a congealed mess of blood cupped in the curve of the robes at his neck. "He wasn't alive when he had the crown melted into his scalp, was he?"

Dr. Lecter lifted one of the photographs for closer inspection.

"Hard to say, without inspecting the body." he commented with a frown. "The implement was possibly cauterizing the skin, but head wounds are notorious for heavy bleeding. I would assume that perhaps Ms Hart would know the answer to that question."

"I'm not liking the probable answer, Dr. Lecter." Will muttered.

"See? She even freaks him out, and he's-"

"Dude,  _shut-the-fuck-up_."

"Woah, what the fuck for?"

"You're gonna get us both in trouble, idiot."

"Idiot? Oh, really? You're scared of that little spitfire?"

"You are an idiot." he scoffed. "Did you not hear the captain when he put us on this case?"

Theodore apparently had to think about that. Then he went pale.

"Oh, for fucks sake."

"Yeah, exactly. You  _idiot_."

"Someone wants a word with you." was the declaration as she came back in, with the energy of a thunderstorm.

"What? Who?"

She tossed him her phone and wiggled her fingers at it.

"Magic powers. That's your captain, don't keep him waiting. You got anything to add, Beetle?" it was a nasty play on his partner's last name, and he flushed, apparently cowed. He shook his head with a little shrug and turned his face down to his notes, looking very determined.

"But captain-... Yes sir. Yes, sir. Of course, sir." he pressed the red hang up button and very gently handed the phone back. "I'm sorry for my behaviour, Miss Hart. You will receive my full -written - apology in the mail."

"Thanks, Theo." she drawled. "Arrivaderci, friend." and she stared at him for a long second after until he was out of sight, then returned her attention to back Will.

"Did you just get him fired?"

"I'm not that petty, nor that hungover. I just had him write up his misdemeanours for the rest of the day." she sighed. "Now. What do you see?"

He looked from Jack to her, to the pictures.

"I can see what you wrote - Tom Blithely's murders, and his intentions. And I can see where our  _Encompassed_  killer is cracking through the mask. His voice is going through a wall; it's muffled. I can't make sense of both of them at once."

"Talk to me." she said evenly. "I'll tell you what is and isn't mine. But I'll tell you now, he's cracking for sure. That mask? It's practically falling off. A lot of this is not what I wrote."

"It's progressively personal." He murmured, self-conscious. She nodded along, encouraging his outward thought process. "Just little things that make it... more his to own."

"Is he escalating?" she asked, stepping beside him, so that he was flanked by the doctor and the writer.

"Probably just adding his own flourishes."

"I don't like flourishes." she scowled.

"He wants to impress you." he murmured.

"That's not gonna make it any better, Will."

"He-... Wants... To show you he  _understands_  you. So he's showing you how he agrees... and how he substitutes his work and yours."

"So..." she flicked blood shot, hazy yellow eyes up to him. "This is Fan Fiction."

"Essentially." he managed to maintain the shared look. "He wants you to know that he knows who you are. You're E. M Hart, and you're Willow Hammond. He knows you."

"Do you think he knows me personally?"

"Yes." he looked at the photos. "Almost definitely."

"Brilliant. That's just what I like to hear. My friends are murderously inclined sociopaths."

"He's probably just a psychopath."

"Semantics. Some bastard I know is killing people. How did I miss him?"

"Psychopaths are adept at blending. Applying camouflage to fit in to regular society." Jack offered. "I would say he has an obsession with you, if that weren't blindingly plain."

"Maybe he has an obsession with Tom Blithely." Em suggested, but Will shook his head, studying the pictures.

"No, no, no. This guy - it's intense, the way he feels about you. And no amount of, of words, no amount of fan mail or videos, none of that was enough. He's displaying these affections for you in a way that only you are supposed to recognise. You said once that your killer thought in riddles that you could describe..."

"Riddles. At nine forty in the morning?" she sighed. "So what set him off? This doesn't make sense. The motive. I don't get the motive." she rubbed her eyes, perching on Jack's desk.

"You don't have to get the motive." Jack murmured. "That's what Will is for. You're here to decipher the murders, not the murderer himself."

"Herself." she mused in muted reply. She swiped a hand around the back of her neck and scowled down at the photos. "Why now? There's no significant star or moon charts, no special pagan holidays, no - otherworldly, time lines."

"Em," Jack said firmly. "That's not what you're here to think about. Leave that to us. Tell Will what you see that's wrong, here."

"I told you. The character is nigh spot on. He was greedy, rich from birth, famous but internationally hated. The clothes are wrong, the bling is wrong... There's a lot wrong with this one." she paused. "So the Encompassed killer knows where I live, and he knows who I am... I'll get in contact with Bert. He will know who has access to that information."

"Bert?"

"Mm." she traced a long line of blood on Nathan Gold's throat. "He's my publisher. Father figure. Confidant." her eyes flicked to Dr. Lecter then down again before she added:

"Encourager of AA meetings."

"I see." he said quietly, but made no further judgement nor comment. Em excused herself from the room and made a phone call, then came back into the office and fell sound asleep in the armchair.

* * *

Bert was a heavy man in expensive shoes. His fingers were thick and he was sweating, breathing heavy, as he swung dramatically into the office. Jack's receptionist was loudly protesting, but neither Bert nor Willow noticed. She was already on her feet, bracing the chair, and she was undoubtedly Willow, not Em.

Em could brace a crime scene, fire a rookie cop with pre-made contacts in the force, and spot sneaky psychological profiling a mile off, but Willow was twenty years old, and she was scared. She skipped over to the man who bent from his behemoth height to scoop her up into a hug, lifting her feet inches off the ground.

There were tears, and quick, muted whispers. He held her tightly, his cheek to her head, his massive palms on her face, hiding her expression. His eyes were red ringed when he opened them, a blazing crystal blue, wet at his pale lashes. She took a moment to wipe her face and find composure, before she swung back around, Em once more.

"This is Bert." she offered, and the man inflated with pride, striding forward to offer a solid handshake to all men present in the room, including the dozing officer Scarab.

"Nice to see you again, Jack." he offered, and shook his hand again. "S'been too damn long."

"Likewise, Bert. How's Murph?"

"Eh. How's Bella?"

"Fine, thank you. Has Em filled you in on things?"

"You know my Em." he put an arm over her stick thin shoulders, and she sunk into his fleshy side, her face peaceful, posture lax. "There are only so many people who know for certain who Em is." he said, rubbing his free hand over his scruffy face.

"Not that they haven't tried." she smiled at the side of his head, tired and content. "When Timothy Bell was wrecking my life, he tried to get it out of Bert who I was."

He motioned to a light scar on the side of his forehead to show for what he had gone through.

"Not my girl." he rubbed her arm, and she positively beamed. "Between me and the printing press, there's about twelve people who might've put it together. I kept names quiet. Those who know for certain aren't capable of these crimes, physically."

"I've only had about four stalkers." she muttered. "If that helps at all."

"Any of them been violent?" Jack prodded.

"Not so much as vocal." she replied. "Just present."

They took their time - Bert went through an extensive pocket book of people who had access to the information necessary to figure out who E.M Hart was. He produced a two hundred person list of names in regards to the publishing industry alone; the one he started in regards to civilians (caterers, dog walkers, die-hard fans who requested they meet upon their death beds) that list was eighty strong and still building.

"I need a shower." Em muttered, four hours later. "I need a drink. And food."

"I would offer my services, dear, but you know I'm more useful banging my head against a wall than in the kitchen." Bert's hand settled on her shoulder and rubbed in a soothing circle she leaned into.

"You could come to dinner at my house." Hannibal said amiably. "If you give me an hour I can have something ready for you both."

"I don't know." Em said. "Wouldn't wanna impose."

"Nonsense." he waved the thought away like a bad smell. "I'd love to pick your brains at my dinner table."

"Well, I don't see why not, Emmy." Bert squeezed her shoulder. "Would you like to?"

"I guess. Don't take my lack of enthusiasm the wrong way, doctor, I'm just grumpy because I'm tired."

"It's completely understandable." he waited a moment. "Shall we say, six o'clock?"

* * *

Bert had driven the both of them - Em appeared to be at ease, if not slightly tipsy, in a modest cream coat that smelt brand new.

"Please, come in."

"Thank you. I brought Merlot -" he lifted the bottle to inspect it further, as opposed to hand it to the man. "I heard you were a man of taste. I had to have it recommended so I apologise in advance if it's terrible - I'm somewhat a brandy man."

"Thank you, this will go lovely with our meal." his smile was quite genuine. "How are you, Em?"

"Well," she smiled easily, no doubt because Bert was there, and there were no dead bodies (in sight). "I'm out of my head, so that's a good thing. It smells amazing in here, Doctor."

"Thank you." He gestured for her to turn around, and took the coat from her shoulders. Her black hair had been fashioned into a circled bun at the back of her head, and removing the wool from her skin revealed that her dress, while quite modest, had a low back.

Her spine was knobbly and shadowed - if he were to eat her, he'd be going hungry.

"What a beautiful dress." he said, hanging up the coat. "Navy compliments your skin tone brilliantly."

"Flatterer." she replied, almost entirely nonplussed. "You'll get me bothered if you keep that nonsense up."

"I never nonsense my guests. Unless they ask me the secret to my secret sauce. Then, I'm afraid, nonsense is required. Please, come in. Wine?"

They both accepted the offer. Hannibal poured their beverages and took his seat at the head of the table - Bert to his left, Em to his right. When the appetizer was severed Bert inhaled his, while Em picked at hers. Hannibal had refilled her glass twice, and thought it quite safe to start his prodding.

"How long have you known the police chief?"

She looked at him from under her lashes.

"Captain. And for about ten years." so they'd met around the same time as her parents died. Interesting. "He's on my christmas card list."

"And mine." Bert said with a haughty chuckle. "I always send him a candy basket and a book to read. He's yet to pick any of them up."

"He's a busy man." Em told him fondly. "And a diabetic."

He just chuckled.

While the silence was comfortable - filled with approving noises from Bert as he ate his food - Hannibal rose to collect plates and present the main meal. He refilled Em's glass, cracked open another bottle of wine, and proceeded his prodding.

"Do you mind if I ask how your parents died?"

"Yes, I do." she took another gulp of red. "But I suppose morbid curiosity will probably paint a darker picture than the truth. And you're a psychiatrist, so it'll probably be worse than a layman's ideas."

"Em, it's not really something to talk about over dinner." Bert mused.

"Nothing I talk about ever is. I have little to no tact." she informed the doctor, who was already well aware. "I was ten. I was kidnapped with my elder sister. My father was in a bad way with a bunch of people on the...shady, side of life. We were collateral."

Hannibal pursed his lips, she took a long pull of wine, looking at him over the rim.

"My sister was sixteen to my ten. She was apparently old enough for all the terrible things men do to unwilling girls. I didn't hear it or see it, but she came back bloody in all the wrong places and hysterical. We were only there for three days or so before we got found. When we went through the police system, it was fine, we got sent home and my dad paid his debts. Then my sister figured she was pregnant and decided the best way to handle that would be to slit her wrists. Ma sent me to a private school in the country so she could kill my dad with a butcher's knife to the eye. When she was waiting for her trial a few weeks later she hung herself with her prison issue jumpsuit." she casually cut into her meat, lifted it to her mouth, and thought some more, before adding: "I was the one to find my sister's body."

Then she went about consuming her dinner, like she'd made a factual comment on the weather.

"Way to ruin the ambiance," Bert said with a hearty snort. "You've never mentioned you found your sister."

"You've never asked."

"You never volunteered."

"You're not as pretty as he is." she jerked her head at the doctor, who shook himself out of a dark reprieve and lifted broccoli to his lips.

"Now who is the flatterer?"

"Me." Bert injected, and they shared a small chuckle. "Now tell us, Doctor, what is this? 'M going to try and get my wife to replicate it."

"Bert, he's not your wife. He's your husband."

''He's not here to defend himself."

"No, but  _I am_."

He sighed dramatically.

"Yes, dear."

She rolled her eyes, stabbing into a piece of meat.

"Well, doctor? Come now, I wouldn't tell a soul. It is so good."

"It is a secret."

"Oh, come on. What's it called, at least?"

He proceeded to tell him, in fluid French that neither of them would've understood, even if he'd slowed down to pronounce it.

"What's the meat?"

"If I told you, I'm afraid you wouldn't even try it."

"Story of my life!" he said with a chuckle.

Em cocked her head as if stung by something, leveling a look across the table at the doctor. She rolled the food around her mouth, chewing slowly, her yellow eyes glazed as she fixed them on him. Her nose wrinkled as she swallowed, and reached for an empty glass with a disappointed: 'Oh.'

"More wine, Em?" he returned the stare without blinking.

"Yes, please." she matched it, curious expression on her face as she swallowed and watched him walk over to her to pour for her. She looked into his face as he tipped the bottle to the rim of her glass, eyes going every detail and crevice. "Thank you."

"You are very welcome." he smiled at her. "Now. I find myself inclined to ask a question that may further ruin the mood."

"Well you did just do your digging in regards to my dead family." she said and took a long swig of her drink. "I honestly don't think it'll be that bad. Go on ahead."

He offered the wine to Bert, who again, politely declined, watching him with good-natured worry in his twinkly blue eyes. He waited until he had taken his seat and picked up his own glass before asking.

"Do you have any idea on who is performing the murders?"

"I don't know who's doing them. Honestly, I don't care."

" _Willow_."

"Look, I'm just saying. I can't figure it out. I'm not omnipresent. I'm working on the  _why_. If I get the why of it all, I can maybe get the who."

"Jack would be turning you away from such things."

"Jack doesn't like to admit I'm good at it. Next time you see him, ask him why Timothy Bell ended up in prison. Aside from the fact I was bait. I figured him out. Flushed out his character."

"Profiled him." Bert offered.

"Ugh, don't you start. He's already trying to subliminally recruit me. Although given my history..."

"You'll probably end up like the curly fellow." Bert said brightly. "A special agent."

"Will? Huh. Yeah, probably, if writing ever gets old."

Hannibal watched how carefully she was now consuming her food, how she drank after every bite, as if to get the taste out of her tongue.

"Do you have any interesting theories about our Encompassed killer?"

"All of them are interesting. Some of them are stupid. Most aren't even plausible for a book." she set her glass down and pointedly cut and ate another slice of meat.

"Do you think it's someone who hates you?" Bert ventured, rubbing his moustache. "Hates Timothy Bell, maybe?"

"You don't replicate fake murders inspired by true life events." she shook her head, brow contracted as she further prodded at her food. "I have this feeling it's not a hate thing. It's an ode."

"An ode?" Bert scoffed. "You are not that self obsessed."

"No, I'm not. It's- a serenade. A parody."

"A performance?"

"Not exactly. I think it's what Will said it was." she murmured. "Fan Fiction."

"Not the kind of Fan Fiction you usually deal with." Bert mused. "We have a few bought to our attention by friends and family, some times. Some are actually very good."

"So it has been obvious to you for a while that people are inspired by your work?"

"Mm." she swallowed. "Hang on. Most of what people take from it is Tom Blithely fucking around between slaughtering people. Don't give me that look Bert, it's straight up smut. And I mean, that's fine, he's a man, and men fuck, and some of the ways I -  _he_  - kills his victims, he gets a little... Hot and bothered." she stabbed a head of broccoli.

"But that's all. Smut. Tom Blithely is my exorcism of Timothy Bell. Spoiler alert, they're the same person, only I have total control over one of them and the other is in a mental high security facility. My Tom has depth and character and - spoiler alert - I kill him. It was my way of correcting the mistake I made in missing his jugular, or his skull, with that gun. I can stare him down now because I killed him. I killed him to get him out of my head."

"And you thought you'd kill the mood." Bert said lightly.

Em wasn't finished.

"The people who go through the motions of Fan Fiction recognise something in the characters portrayed. They have control. They answer their what if questions. The play with worlds and people already set up for them, already with histories and dramas, like we are trained to do when we're kids. We're given Barbies with Ken dolls and told that they are a couple. Fan Fiction is the maturing way to say: 'Hey, what if Ken didn't love Barbie, what if Ken loved Dave?'"

"It would explain the horrendous floral ensemble he ends up wearing half the time." Bert nodded. "I can't remember playing kissy kissy with my G.I Joes, though."

"But you did play with them." she smiled at him, then obscured the smile and turned back to Dr. Lecter. "Aside from that, it's a way to connect with other people who admire the same things, an easy way to take the worst and weirdest parts of you and put them into the world to see if anyone understands you, too."

"But can the same be applied to the  _Encompassed_  killer?"

"Absolutely." she finished her wine and her food, sat back and brooded. Bert made light conversation and Hannibal reciprocated, but his mind was working on three or four different layers, most of which were far away from the dinner table.

They ate desert, of which Em completely demolished, and when they went to leave she was just tipsy enough to embrace the doctor, lingering for a moment to comment on how nice he smelled and how she would be seeing him soon.

 


	4. Pride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The all consuming desire to be more important or attractive than others - excessive love of oneself.

Em was not a morning person, she was a stay-up-all-night-sleep-at-noon person. It was three o'clock, too early then, when she woke to a sprig of lavender curled in her fist. She did not make a habit of carrying plants to bed, so at first, she was mildly confused, kind of entertained. She didn't even have a lavender bush around her little house. A thump startled her and she sat up, gasping hard enough to invert the hollow at her throat, and threw the small flower to the other side of the room.

She covered her mouth with one hand - realized that tasted like flowers - and threw it away too, like she could dislodge her hand. She snatched up her phone and stared at the floral arrangement at the end of her bed, where the crime scene photos were propped up like morbid flowers, in a pretty enough arrangement.

"Jack speaking-"

"He was in my house!" she said, in a voice that was both bellow and scream. "That murderous bastard was in my  _fucking house_!"

"Em - what happened? What did he do?"

"In my room, Jack, in my room! He's seen me practically  _naked_ \- oh god!" the window was wide open and she really wanted to fling herself out of it, run and jump into her pool and not ever come out. She flew instead, into the bathroom, and slammed the door shut, snapping the lock closed, putting her shoulders on the wood.

"Em?"

She only replied by making a very distressed noise at the bouquet of precariously arranged flowers in there too, propped precariously against her leaky faucet.

"Em, are you okay?"

"Not  _really_!"

"Did he touch you?"

"Not that I  _know_  of!"

"Okay, Em, listen to me. I'm going to put you on loud speaker. Dr. Lecter and Will are here with me." she heard the dull beep that indicated he had done as he said he would. "How do you know that he was in your room?"

"Well, all the flowers kind of gave it away," she was breathless, sliding down the door. "There are photos - Jesus Christ,  _more photos_." she covered her eyes with one hand.

"What flowers?"

"There are bunches of flowers everywhere." she replied in a drawl. "My house smells like a florist. Why am I even awake? What's the time?"

"Quarter past three." Dr. Lecter intoned, and she made a disgusted nose.

"I shouldn't even be conscious right now." she mumbled, and removed her hand from her eyes. "I don't think I'm actually sober right now. Nope, the room is still spinning. Can someone come and pick me up, please?"

"I'm on my way. Stay with us."

"I'm not going-" but a suspicious thump made her bite her tongue.

"Em?" that was Will in her ear. "Em, what's going on?"

"I can hear..."

"Em?" that was Jack. " _Is he still there_?"

"Give me a minute. Just a second..."

She cocked the free ear to the door, holding her breath. She stayed so positively still her pounding heart was the only thing she was aware of. She wished it'd stop beating, not for the first time in her life - this time was for a different reason. Jack, Will and Hannibal were quiet in her ear, so silent she wondered absently if she'd accidentally hung up on them. There was no noises, no indication of an unwanted visitor. She breathed out, prepared to tell them she was drunkenly hallucinating again.

Another photo slid under the door.

She launched back from it, smashing her shoulder against the sink, making the flowers tumble on top of her head. It was only then the smell of lavender parted, leaving room for the unforgettable scent of coppery blood and meat going bad. She made panicky noises, dropping the phone, as she realized that ten dislocated and strategically placed fingers were in the soil and petals now on her head. The maggots were just an added, writhing bonus.

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" she threw it away, smashing it against the wall. A stray finger rolled out and stared back at her. "YOU GET YOUR RAT BASTARD ASS BACK HERE! I'LL FUCKING GUT YOU!"

She slid in the dirt, the stems, deaf to the increasingly concerned FBI agents on the phone - which she tossed to her side without hesitation. She wrenched the door open and saw his shadow darting through her bedroom door. She followed, naked legs and baggy shirt be damned. She didn't know where he'd been hiding, she didn't know where he had been watching, but she'd woken up in the process of his set-up and he'd stuck around.

Now she would stick him.

She was breathing hard and fast, knowing that now she had started, she wouldn't be able to make herself stop. He was on the second floor landing, taking three steps at a time - she simply catapulted her significantly smaller body after him, catching both his legs in constrictor like arms.

She hadn't been anticipating what to do if she  _actually_  caught him. She had been wanting to get a look at his face. Now she grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked it back to see...

And that was all she remembered clearly. The fact that she saw his face. There was a brief tumble, she got a good right hook in, but the larger man dominated the fisticuffs, and she came to with a very worried Will kneeling at her side, his very blue eyes staring into hers behind his slightly uneven, foggy glasses. Hannibal was holding her face, two fingers at her pulse, a small smile on her mouth as she roused.

"Welcome back." he said, rather dryly. "How do you feel?"

There were FBI everywhere... Ed Scarab was looking at her Mighty Thor underwear. She caught Will's coat in one fist, and cracked a wide grin at the doctor.

"It's about time you got here." she shifted, lifted her other hand, to reveal a chunk of dark hair and scalp in her palm. "Guess who's got DNA?"

* * *

"How's the description going, Em?"

Her glasses flashed as she glanced up from the paper and pad on her knees, the scribbled words that pressed deeper and deeper into the page the further down she wrote. There was a lengthy smudge of grey lead up her right hand and she was forming a callous on her finger from where she gripped the pencil. Not only was she frustrated, they were in the car, on the way to the next co-ordinates. The neat scrawl is steadily slanted the further she writes on one side of the page, a result of having nothing but a knee to lean on.

"I'd say not good, Jack."

The frown on her mouth was small, but pronounced. She rubbed one bloodshot eye under her lenses and kicked one leg over the other, proceeding to scowl at the page with a fist at her lips.

"Everything helps." he reminded her, matter-of-factly.

She scoffed.

"Not this. This is-... Nonsense."

"You may be in a stage of shock." Dr. Lecter had offered his council but she had nothing to discuss - she gave the scalp and hair to Beverly and had been running on fumes since she packed a heavy bag of her things and locked the front door behind her. He didn't once attempt to read what she had written for privacy's sake, but he was inclined to. "Give yourself time."

"I don't have any time to give anyone," she peered at him from over the cracked frames of her specs. "Least of all myself."

"Read what you've written." Jack said. "There might be something in there that makes sense."

"It's not a physical description."

"Everything helps."

She watched him over her glasses in the rear view mirror. He was bedrock - he wanted to hear what she had to say, and she didn't get a chance to decide whether she would share that or not. So flicking the pages, clearing her throat, she did.

"He is warm blood, dirt and poorly. He smells like sick and bad meat. There's an intelligence behind his eyes but he masks it in a veil of madness. He is swirling masses of hurt and awe. He looks at me like with deer-in-the-headlights-eyes." her golden gaze flicked up to Will, then down again. "He is tall. His weight is not kind. He has dark hair. I know his face, I am familiar. But I don't know who he is, and anything I've seen is obscured in rage and in half drunk memory."

She sighed, folded the book shut, and tucked it in her bag (between the handy cannister of alcohol and her mobile phone.)

"How's that for helpful?"

"You recognised him." Hannibal noted. "That is something."

"Just think on it, Em." Will offered. "That list can't be longer than the one we had before."

"No, but I make my acquaintances whilst I'm under some influence." she twirled the pencil around her fingers with a repetitive, practised ease. "I'm what you call anti-social at the best of times. Drunk if I'm lucky. Responsive and involved if Bert has anything to do with me."

"You can go over the list again." Will said, and glanced back over his shoulder at her. "See if it's jogged your memory."

Silence. She leaned across and dusted a few stray lavender petals from the doctor's knee, collected from when he'd knelt to find her alive and stirring at the foot of her staircase.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." She sat back in her chair and yawned, leaning her head against the window. "How long until we get there?"

"We've got about an hour."

"Great. If any one needs me..." she shut her eyes and proceeded to dream.

It was probably for the best. Hannibal found a maggot still clinging to her hair.

* * *

The intense smell of lavender made the writer halt in her tracks. Her hand flew out to brace Will's arm, though she didn't appear to be conscious of that action.

"Oh." she was shaking her head, sleep-sticky lashes fluttering. "I thought I could do this. I don't know..."

"What's the matter?" Dr Lecter and Will shared a brief glance - all the colour had drained from Em's face.

"I-" she swallowed a hard mouthful, let go of Will's arm, but wrapped it around her midsection. " _I,_  am what's  _wrong_." she spat the word like it was poison in her mouth, her aggression not aimed at them.

Hannibal put his hand on her shoulder as an offer of small comfort.

"It's- just -... I draw inspiration to write my best. I draw it from Google searches of phobias to my own obscure nightmares. It's a therapy." she sent a half joking smile in Hannibal's direction, then returned to staring at the large, fragrant barn. "This... This will be... sensitive, for me to handle. This one comes out of the darkest part of my deepest fears. This is... Projecting. This is... what scares me, personally. I don't know..."

"If you can handle viewing it?"

"Hannibal, I couldn't even edit this chapter."

"The lavender..." Hannibal paused. "This wouldn't happen to be that model, would it?"

She put her hand over her mouth and nodded. As most of her face was hidden behind her hand, her expresison was somewhat a mystery. But when Dr. Lecter offered his arm, her hand flew to it, and her eagerness to get away was betrayed by the wobble of her bottom lip. She quickly sucked it into her mouth and bit down.

"Sorry." she said to Will, with wide eyes. "I'm really, really sorry, for this one."

"It's not you." he told her vehemently.

"This  _is_  me." she caught his wrist, and squeezed. "This,  _this is me_." she swallowed a heavy mouthful, her thumb digging into his forearm, like she didn't want him to go. He could feel that she didn't. She was both ashamed of this particular killing and scared of him seeing it.

"We will be in my car." Dr. Lecter offered, adjusting his hand to support rather than comfort her.

The walk into the barn alone made Will feel as though his insides were doused in ice.

It had been painted a vibrant orange in recent weeks - the muted smell of paint was mostly masked by the heavy smell of lavender. There were bushels of it in every nook of the barn, little lilac petals littered the floor. There were dried husks wedged between the victim's toes, and in her palms, which were bloody stumps.

There was an odd shape to her lower abdomen; a protrusion that shouldn't have been. Will briefly noted that the killer seemed intent on putting things into the victims by way of their sex; he remembered that at heart, the killer was a twenty year old girl, and it probably was a metaphor for rape.

Will shook his head, taking off his glasses for a moment to rub his eyes.

"This doesn't feel like bugs... or dirt." Katz was pressing the pads of her fingers into the swollen belly of the woman. "If I didn't know any better..." she dropped her fingers to the woman's bruised and swollen vagina, which is when Will turned his eyes away.

The barn was well removed from people, easily accessible by the road. His mind started to piece together parts of a picture he wasn't sure he wanted assembled. He found himself wishing that Em would walk in and start rattling off information to ease him into the correct mindset.

Jack quietly rounded off the crawling agents, herding them like curious cattle out of the barn. It was easier to do when Em wasn't trying to push the visions out of him, or when Dr. Lecter wasn't studying his nervous ticks. He allowed himself a single moment as Will Graham, then he sunk into the shadow of the Encompassed killer with a swipe of gold.

"I strip her down to nothing. She is perfect and I want to see all of her, so I hang her from the roof by her hands. Every angle." she's struggling lamely from the heavy duty binds at her wrists, the hooks of which are still in the ceiling. She's drooling around the gag in her mouth, crying, a thick stream of mucus on her upper lip. It's not far enough removed that he is allowed to hear her screams, so he keeps her compliant by injecting alcohol directly into her veins. He doesn't really want to hear it, but everything she says and does and  _is_...

Perfect.

The darkness at the crook of her elbows indicate the forceful injections made by a non-surgical, clumsy hand. Infection has started to bubble and crust the ditches he's dug in her skin, and even that is perfect. The neatly sorted vodka bottles give further detail to his smarts; they'd be common and unquestioned, untraceable, making his woman compliant and weak. He meticulously turns the labels all facing in the same direction, obsessive lines of pristine bottles staring back at him, cementing his scene.

Perfection.

There are fans directed on the table to his right - a heater is aligned with her torso on the left.

"Everything is about her. I show her I care. I take my time with her because she is special. I keep her as comfortable as I can." she's on the table, her head loosely lolling. Will reaches out and touches her hair - it's clean and smells fruity. It's been brushed through, tended to methodically, arranged in a fantastic flourish around her head, like an ink blot in water.

There are several styling products under the table she was on, and he followed the lead of a light to a cupboard, casually glancing over his shoulder to see her writhing, pleading, crying to be let go. He uncovered the photo printer with very little grandeur. A part of him knew that he had this here. What public servant could print his photos without comment? What person could do it  _right_?

The machine smelt faintly burnt. Broken, maybe. There were many more photos than the last victims - more there than the previous ones combined and double the number again. He uncovered the stash of pictures, flipping through them aimlessly. She was dead in all of them. More eternal that way. The lighting is professional and she looked every inch a model, sometimes with the bulging belly and sometimes without it. In all of them, she was beautiful, glowing, shimmering, perfect.

"She is a work of art. This is my design."

He came back to see that the barn was mostly empty. Em and Dr. Lecter are standing side-by-side but are not touching; she was staring at Will with the photos in his hands, blinking rapidly.

"Will?" her voice was breathy, rough. Will put the photos back in the cupboard, staring at the medically clean floor. "What-... Do you see?" She had never been scared of anything, but he could feel her fear throbbing through the air, and he didn't like it.

"He thought she was perfect." he mumbled and the writer agreed with a strangled hum.

"So did she." Em volunteered. "He's put a baby in her."

"He got her pregnant?" he glanced at the horribly distorted and stretched skin of her lower belly. Now that she mentioned it, he could almost distinguish a head.

"Not exactly." she managed to make herself walk stiffly over to the table on which the victim lay posed. "It's a baby born. A plastic doll."

A beat.

"Did he want her to have his children?"

"He wanted to ruin her." she lifted her hand, keeping inches away, and couldn't help but look incredibly sad. The fear is gone now, and both men sense that she is capable, in control of herself. Willow had tried to break through, but Em kept the lid on her. "This woman..."

She paused, following the bloated belly up the thin line of her toned muscles. She would've otherwise been in incredible shape, had she not had a baby doll wedged in her stomach. Em went to the woman's head, and turned her face away, looking at the vodka bottles all neatly lined up in rows.

"This is different again." she said, muted. "The elements are there, but he's... taken creative licence. Dr. Lecter, you've read the story."

"Yes."

"Is this what you saw?"

"No." he looked around with raised brows. "I imagined a far more... chaotic, setting."

"Exactly." she swallowed a nervous mouthful, digging in her bag. "She's been washed and taken care of, like in the story. He feeds her and lets her throw up if she needs to, wears it like - like liquid jewels. He's cleaned up whatever mess he's made by putting the baby in her, stitched her back up again. Kept her compliant with alcohol. Those are all things Tom Blithely did."

"There are no broken bottles." Hannibal said mildly, and settled in a graceful crouch to inspect them for prints. There are none. No one had expected there to be. "Not a single one. Broken bottles did feature quite heavily in the scene. I think you described them as crystals covering the floor."

"Diamonds." she returned with a quirk in her mouth that wasn't quite a smile. "But... I didn't do that to her hands." she dropped her voice an octavie.

"That was all for me, wasn't it? The flowers in my room. The piece de resistance. He wanted to send me more than photos."

"I think so, yes." Hannibal surveyed her grey face, the tight set of her shoulders and jaw. "Em?"

"I'm- handling it."

"You're internalizing."

"I'm a writer. It'll be expressed. Just not yet." she looked around with a small frown and hunched shoulders. "I think he's... settling. Getting bored, maybe."

"He's definitely not bored." Will assured her. "If anything, he's gaining speed."

"Escalating or falling?" she wondered out loud, and turned to the back of the barn, inspecting the orange paint, each of the dead straight brushstrokes. "Gaining notoriety, infamy, of course, after Gold, a high profile killing. But he's gaining speed in his decent. He's falling. Losing control. It's like he's..."

"Running out of time." Will finished the thought for her. "Like a countdown."

"Like he's got an agenda planned." she nodded along the sentiment. "The first few are all so  _precise._  They're all so-... So..."

"Structured." Will agreed, and nodded to the lines of bottles. "He craves the structure but he's, working to achieve something. He's getting -..."

"Impatient for it." she turned to him then with slightly narrowed eyes. "Like a kid at christmas."

"More like an advent calendar. Unwrapping a present every day until the finale." Will painfully imparted the thought with a twist to his mouth. "The countdown has already begun. At first he was happy with one. Then he skipped a few days and got two. Now he's trying hard to do it right."

"And he's not content with putting so much effort in any more." Em glanced at the cupboard with all the photos. "He  _is_  like a kid. Started off honestly doing his best. But he got tired. Lazy."

"Distracted." Will found himself looking at Em, and she looking back. He didn't feel obliged to glance away, only a small discomfort that they both so easily tuned into the train of thought, and how fluidly they completed parts of the puzzle with pieces the other didn't know were missing.

"Are we interrupting something here?" Jack broke the moment. Em quietly went to the cupboard and proceeded to peer at the pictures she could see without touching them. Hannibal was at Jack's side but soon drifted, a supportive, silent shadow for the writer and empath.

"No." Will retorted, but he did and it annoyed him. It wasn't every day he managed to connect with someone, let alone someone who caught the gist of what he could do, and could equal it, offer their own.

"Dr. Lecter said you've uncovered some photos." it is a badly constructed pretense to interrupt them. "Also, Ed Scarab and Theodore Knott are now out of your hair. They overheard your conversation and have handed in their resignation. Said something about being unable to be objective when the two people working this case were outwardly narrating the killer's sentiments." he only partially aimed the comment to Will.

His eyes flicked to Em, who didn't look up but saluted him in acknowledgment with a mumbled derogatory comment. Will dropped his head to hide the cheeky grin that split on his face.

"Also, there's been another development." he paused, looking old and grey. "There is a baby in this woman's womb."

"We know." Will said with maybe a touch of petulance.

"No, you misunderstand. Katz did a quick ring around. There's been a still born go missing from a hospital ten minutes drive from here."

Will instantly looked up to Em, who had gone completely rigid. She was staring at pictures but her head was cocked on a nearly unsettling angle, listening to what Jack said. Very slowly, she turned, and marched out of the barn. Will gave Jack a quick, withering look, then followed her out.

"Em." he said, though she didn't so much as acknowledge him. She just about pulled the door off it's hinges and threw herself bodily in the backseat, shaking hands digging furiously in her bag. Her face had never been such a green colour. Knowing that it was possibly the worst thing that she could've imagined, Will pulled open the other door and likewise climbed in Jack's Humvee.

"Don't judge me." she demanded, and unscrewed the lid of her travel container. She took several long pulls from it and when she resurfaced for air, the smell of rum was pronounced. "I'm an alcoholic. Let's not talk about it."

"I won't." he pulled off his gloves and tucked them in his pocket. Dr. Lecter had a quick word to Jack, who sullenly followed the two sulking parties into his truck. Will was there because she needed his presence, and they both knew it. When they first met, one of the first things she'd said was that it was nice to know she wasn't alone.

It was something that stuck with him entirely, something he outright associated with the tiny writer.

_Age complex. Right handed. Doesn't do well with authority figures. Likes to know she's not alone._

"It's not even six o'clock." Jack reasoned.

"Do you want some?" Jack did not, but she passed it to Will and he took a healthy draw without further comment, pulling a face at the percent of straight alcohol burning his mouth.

"I've organised a detail for your hotel tonight." Jack told the windscreen.

"Thanks Jack." she sighed heavily, taking an unashamed draw from the bottle. "I'll sleep so easily now."

* * *

 _E.M Hart = Teenage Girl?_  by Freddie Lounds

It may be of no surprise that the highly confrontational works of E.M Hart have inspired yet another spree of violent murders as modeled after the ones written about in the thriller novelist's best selling series of three.

 _Enraptured, Encompassed_ , and  _Enveloped_  have all sold around the world and been printed into seventeen languages, supposedly being suggested for next year's blockbuster and at a reported sum of at least $4.5 million dollars.

But how would you feel, if instead of the supposed middle aged man we've all been lead to believe E.M Hart actually is, we find instead an alcoholic, emotionally unstable teenage girl?

And how would you feel if it was revealed that working on the slew of vicious murders alongside the girl herself was "special agent" Will Graham, of who has been linked to several notorious cases of the last few weeks?

"They have a psychologist present at all times, in case one of them snaps." says all-round good guy Edward Scarab. Constable Scarab was involved in the case when alleged best friend of E.M Hart stayed the night, innocently opening a package that changed her world forever.

"It was sick." the once friend, who wishes to remain unnamed, looks ill when asked what was in the pictures. "They were dead. These twins together. I threw up and she just looked at them, looked through all of them, so calmly, like she'd seen them coming. I was screaming at her to call the police and she barely looked away to talk to me."

The alleged best friend has since neglected contact with the author, and with good reason.

When Constable Knott (involved when his partner took the case) was asked what the actual name of the renound author is, he politely refused to impart with it.

"I swore to the captain I wouldn't tell her name to any one. I will tell you she's young, and she is in fact, a she. ... She, emotionally, is a mess. I've never seen a girl so angry before. Mentally? I mean, this kid has written like, how many books on brutal murders? ... I don't think that should qualify any civilian to be working a live case, especially one that's unstable like that. She's already messed up."

Constable Scarab also mentions that Miss Hart has a very real alcohol problem.

"I didn't once see her without a hangover or bottle in her hand. She would just whip it out and drink it, and we would be in the middle of a crime scene. It was really upsetting to see an underage kid go so astray. And I had to just, deal with it, to keep her happy."

"('Special Agent') Will and Em (E.M) get along great." Constable Knott notes. "I was there when she explained to him about her fascination with incest, and how in love these twins were with each other. He called it sweet, like he understood. ... The things the both of them come out with are twisted. They're on the same train of thought, and it's bound to go off the rails. They're finishing each other's sentences and everything."

The FBI really know what they're doing with America's safety in their hands.

The good news is, on all reports, it appears that a relationship between the multimillion dollar teenager and the slightly insane profiler is the silver lining to all of this mess.

We here at the Tattler have the sincerest hopes that they don't produce offspring.


	5. Sloth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Physical or spiritual laziness.

"I'm sorry to wake you." Jack said, his voice thick and rough with sleep. "We have another murder."

"Do not apologise. I'm awake." Dr. Lecter had been on the verge of dreaming, never a good thing for a man like him. His eyelashes felt fused together. A glance at the clock confirmed he had only gone to bed four hours ago.

4:02

"Is everything alright Jack? Is it Willow?"

"Yes... But not just yet." There was a lengthy pause. "Albert Reynolds has just been discovered. It's been done by the  _Encompassed_  Killer."

"Albert..." he paused, let that sink in. "Willow's Bert? Her father figure, publisher...?"

"Encourager of AA meetings, yes." Hannibal could hear the man search for words, actively choosing what he had to say. "I have not... informed Em, nor Will, of this."

"Why would that be?" he gracefully rolled out of bed, reaching out for his clothes, finding a warm sweater with the phone trapped between his ear and shoulder.

"They're - closer, than I expected them to be." he took another moment to think of his words. "Will seems to be - attached."

"And you didn't expect Will to attach to her? Like Abigail?"

"It's not like that." He made a disgruntled noise. "They have a certain... kinship, in the place where Abigail has reservations. He doesn't protect her. She embraces him and his- ... Gift."

"Abigail has reservations because he thought in the mind of her father."

"Exactly. Willow doesn't have that boundary because they're similarly inclined." He heard the kettle boil. Jack would undoubtedly be making something heavily caffeinated. It pleased Hannibal that he was ranked so highly in people Jack trusted to involve in delicate situations; to know that his information came before Jack had so much as left his house. "I spoke to you about this at the scene. You said that they were connecting."

"I've recognised it, yes." he waited a beat. "They think in the minds of murderers. You think they are bonding because of it."

"They are."

Hannibal couldn't disagree.

"Why is that a problem, Jack?"

"It's not a problem. It's a variable."

"You think that they will be equally as fragile, when it comes time for them to be informed?"

"Em? Absolutely. Will? Most likely. I'd like you to run interference, Dr. Lecter. I'm hoping you can soften the blow."

"I doubt I will be able to do much." but he could, however, be present in the event Will did fall apart. And if he did, Hannibal would just have to put him back together. With maybe a few stray pieces missing, here and there. "How was he discovered?"

"With his head removed."

"No, no, you misunderstand. I meant to ask if the correspondence had been received?"

"Oh. Yes." he cleared his throat, and Hannibal could hear how tired he was. "Kept his head down and back to the cameras and dropped it off outside her room - we gave chase but he got away in a brown sedan, we're running plates now. We picked it up before she could, luckily. Bert's photos were in it. It was progressive... he was still alive in some of them."

"Personal." he noted, and picked out a pair of his less expensive slacks. He envisioned that there would be tears, or at least a trip to Will's home, with all the pack the empath had assembled.

"Yes. I don't think this was coincidence."

"Nor I. The killer  _wanted_  her to see him suffer."

"Exactly. Now, I don't know how to handle it, outside of calling her and giving her time to pull herself together."

"You're assuming she's going to shatter, Jack. I do not think E.M Hart is made of glass."

"Assuming you catch her being Em, and not Willow. There is a difference."

"Notably. But I think that she will handle it, none the less." how well she would handle it, and to what end, however, he wasn't entirely sure. "Give me the address of her current residence, please, and I will be there as soon as I can."

* * *

"Willow." he addressed _her_ on purpose. The girl was not sleep worn, though she was in soft cotton pajamas and a knitted jumper - a laptop was open on her desk, the writing too small to read but in novel format. Her glasses perched on her nose, the broken frame held together by nothing but hope and strategic wear.

"Do you want some coffee?" she seemed pleased with her ability to be so alert and at ease when everyone around her was lethargic and cross. It was like the world had reversed.

"No, thank you." he was sitting before her on the cheap lounge. She took a seat beside him, curled up like a cat, lazily stretching her arms upward with a smile at him, ignoring the strip of pale skin she flashed in her movements.

"So, what 'correspondence' wasn't I allowed to see?" she mused. "Honestly, Jack thinks I haven't gotten used to this yet. The guy snatched it off of me, you know, just about bowled me over when I went for it. I guess you're here to be the buffer. I'm telling you it won't get any worse than seeing the model with the baby shoved into her."

"It will." he promised softly, and she sharpened almost instantly at his gentle tone. She swept her eyes over the curiously peeking officers from between the curtains, who shamefully looked away. She frowned, unfurled, setting both feet on the floor like she might try and run away.

"What?" she cocked her head at him. "What is it?"

"It's someone you know." he said quietly. "Someone you love. Brace yourself."

He didn't have to tell her because the second he mentioned it was someone she loved, she knew. She already knew just from the careful way he had angled his body, like he was expecting her to throw herself at him and slobber all over his nice suit. He repeated the statement again, just to make sure she was hearing him clearly, but the information still jarred in her brain, a spanner lodged in the cogs of her mind.

He uttered the name a third time and she blinked at him stupidly, an owlish expression on her face.

"Uh huh." she said, and stood. "When do we leave?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that we're going to the crime scene." she said evenly. "Have you told Will yet?"

He paused, studying the relaxed set of her shoulders. If he didn't know any better, he'd accuse her of being Bert's killer. But the girl had looked on him with such love and affection, he knew she couldn't so much as lift her hand against him in jest. She might have been violently inclined, but she wasn't a psychopath. Even if she detached from Willow as Em, she couldn't let go of her love for Bert.

"No, not yet."

"Would you mind if I did it?" she turned blazing amber eyes onto his person, still blinking repetitively.

"Of course." he handed her his phone.

"Thank you. Oh, and thank you for telling me." then she retreated into the bathroom, and locked the door behind her.

* * *

"Will, it's me."

"... _Em. Hi."_  she could hear his blankets, hear the muffled heavy breathing. " _Is everything alright_?"

"Not really."

_"Are you calling from Dr. Lecter's phone?"_

"Yes, I am. How are you?"

_"I'm...O...kay?"_

"Sleeping?"

" _Yes._ "

"You sound ill."

" _I'm... Okay._ "

"Nightmares, huh?"

" _Yes._ " she heard him swallow, imagined him all curled up and snoozy in a bed, with his cute curls and long lashes and blue eyes. Nawh.

"Are you okay?"

" _I'm- I'm good, thanks._ "

"You should have some bourbon. Always does the trick for me. I think I was dreaming about ballet last night, so that was a pleasant break from everything. Except it got really dark... Black Swan style, except without the babes eating each other out. I've gotta say, Mila Kunis can come at me under the influence, but Natalie Portman I could probably snap over my knee. Not that I can talk, but I like a little bit of cushin' for the pushin', you know?"

She heard blankets rustling, the light clicking on.

_"I've never heard you talk so much."_

"You've never been around me at five in the morning. I'm nocturnal, dear. I'm also waiting for you to wake up a little bit more."

_"Why? What's happened?"_

"What, can't a girl call her friend at some ungodly hour in the morning? I missed you. I've been writing, you know? I wrote this guy that reminds me a lot of you. I don't know where it's going, or if it's going, but I mean, I'm kinda drunk and I don't usually go to sleep until the sun rises, so I'm good. Everyone else is pretty shitty, pretty grumpy-arsed. But I'm like hey, welcome to my world. Take a shot every time you yawn, you'll be fine."

" _...Right_."

"Hmm. Hey listen. Don't freak out."

" _So something has happened?"_

"You could say that. You could also say it's the same old, same old. Except it's just a little closer to home this time. Brace yourself. Are you braced?"

_"Yes."_

"It's someone I know. Before I tell you - as you're probably going to figure out - I want you to know that I am okay. I feel fine. I am not under any duress, okay?"

" _Who is it?"_

"I'm coping. You're going to cope too."

" _Em-_ "

"Will. I need you to cope too, okay? If you get all your feels, I won't handle it. I need to handle it. So you're going to cope." it was told to him with a matter-of-fact certainty, a slight darkness behind the calm.

" _Is it... Bert?"_

"Yeah. Yeah it is. But I'm okay." her voice pitched. "And you're okay. Okay?"

 _"I'm okay._ "

"Okay. Yeah, good. We've got a crime scene to see, you know? So, put something warm on. Could you bring a bottle of something alcoholic?"

 _"I have whiskey?_ "

"Sure! That'd be great. Thanks, Will. Uhm, so Jack will probably get the deets to you. I'll see you soon."

" _Okay_." he swallowed heavily. " _Willow?"_

"Nope. Em. I'll see you soon, Will." her voice had warmed, gone sticky sweet.

He was grateful Dr. Lecter was there to pick up the pieces.

* * *

"Have you looked into Melissa Bell?" Em had a hand mostly over her mouth, and her eyes were glazed. She was sobering up and in shock, but had very calmly conducted herself into warm clothes and into Jack's truck after returning Hannibal's mobile.

"Melissa Bell?" Jack repeated.

"She's Tom Blithely's-... Excuse me." she closed her eyes, brow creasing in a small frown. "Timothy Bell's... ex-wife. The one who, supposedly set him on his killing spree."

"What makes you say that?" Will prodded carefully.

"Was a chemist." she mumbled. "Her mother-in-law was a photographer."

"We'll look into it, Em." Jack promised her in a soothingly low voice. She made a noise like an agreement, and stared out the window.

* * *

Bert's jolly head was still attached to the fat yellow parts of his neck, a large hook punched through the cartilage of one ear and strung up to the ceiling, swinging in a slight breeze. Drops of blood splattered down in a bloody arc on the floor.

His body was on a modified table bolted to the middle of the floor, inclined so that the cement poured on his shoulders ran down, sticking him fast to the surface. Em examined it with a rapidly draining colour, then paced through the room with her shoulders around her ears like hackles on a wolf.

Recognising this, Will strode over to her, easing around into her peripheral vision, showing his hands.

"Em." Will said carefully.

"Get me out of here." she was drawing slow, heavy breaths, and swaying. "Get me- get me out of here. Will -"

Hannibal caught her forearm and pulled her head to his chest - she caught two fistfuls of his jacket and gasped in his cologne, trying to ruin the scent of her dead friend in her nose. Will cringed from the noise of her desperate breathing, so used to her be so strong. He peeled off his latex glove and took one of her arms as the esteemed doctor braced the other one, leading her away.

Her lips were parted and she was trembling before she cast one last look back to the dead body of her long time friend. Her expression crumpled, and knees buckled. Hannibal held her arm in one hand and her waist in the other, while Will steered her gaze away, making her head sag, defeated, onto her chest.

She took her hand away from Hannibal and covered her mouth with it, breathing hard through her nose, gagging slightly. Will jerked his head towards his car and Hannibal nodded, directing them there. She was steadily breaking, pieces of Em flaking away to reveal the much more vulnerable Willow. Privately, Dr. Lecter would've liked to see what she'd be had he stoked her rage, but this was a satisfying revelation in itself.

Until Freddie Lounds happened.

"Hello, Willow." she was propped against Will's car. "Nice to see you." the implication that she liked to see the young girl in such a wretched state was only thinly veiled.

"Go to  _Hell_." came the sharp, wavering retort.

"Do you want me to quote you on that?" it didn't faze her that the girl was crying, trying in vain to breathe. She watched her with a removed, but interested air. Willow turned away and Dr. Lecter once again brought her to his chest, smoothing a hand over her hair. "So it is Bert then."

"I think you should leave." Will said through his teeth.

"I'm not crossing any police lines. I've got the owner's permission to be on his property. Unlike Bert, who I'd think was-"

Willow pulled out from the relatively harmless circle of the doctor's arms and took two long steps, swinging her fist up and across. It hit Freddie square in the hinge of her jaw, making an audible crack as her teeth clashed together. She half spun, her hand flying up to brace her face, and Willow took another step, bringing her fist down again in the same place, half punching the reporter's hand. Will put his arm around her upper chest to hold her back, though she didn't advance again.

Her upper lip was drawn back, and she shook all over, resonating in the empath. Her fingernails were so tightly pressed into her palms she was drawing blood, but she couldn't feel it. Her entire world had narrowed in on the reporter who was holding her face, eyes slightly unfocused.

"I'll sue." the redhead promised, her voice a deadly quiet hiss.

"I double dog dare you."was the drawled taunt. The woman turned in a fantastic flourish of red hair, and Willow continued: "May I remind you that you certainly aren't the only one capable of dishing up dirt,  _Lounds_."

The woman paused her stride but didn't reply, nor return. She picked up her pace, pacing determinedly to her car, inclined to one side. She slammed her door shut and proceeded to spin her tires in the mud, speeding out of the farm. Willow leaned into Will's arm and sagged, exhausted, no longer on the verge of crying.

"Can you take me-... Somewhere?" she looked up at him, the bags under her eyes horribly pronounced. Dr. Lecter could see that her bloodied palms were smearing Will's coat - she pressed her hands into his arm with desperation, keeping it around her chest. "Somewhere... that isn't my home? The hotel? I can't-"

"Come to my home." Hannibal said calmly. "Will knows the way. If you wish to stay, I will make up the guest room."

"I-... Too many memories. Too unfamiliar. I'm sorry to be difficult." she put her temple down on Will's collar bone, to which he curled around her, hiding his face in her hair. It had been a long time since someone had hugged him. And while he could feel the grief in her, the comfort the simple gesture brought forth was enough to keep him there.

"It's completely fine. You are not difficult. Do not apologise." Dr. Lecter opened the car door for her, and guided her down into the backseat away from Will, reaching in to click her seat belt in place when she made no move to do it herself. "I will need to bandage your hands when we get there. Hold onto your scarf."

She blinked stupidly at her wounded hands. Will, already in the driver's seat, glanced back, slightly mortified. Then he drove, breaking a few laws as he went.

* * *

"Last time I was here." she said simply, but apparently forgot to finish her sentence, because she doesn't add anything on and doesn't attempt to. Will was only slightly confused, but Hannibal was not.

_Last time I was here, I was with Bert. And I was happy._

"If I find him first," she said in a small, broken slur. "You won't ever find him again. I will  _end_  him."

There was a blaring silence.

"You're drunk." Hannibal said quietly. He had seen her take a few swigs from the bottle concealed at her hand, but now he took note of the significantly dark colour of her wine. He inhaled, and hinted at rum.

"I am an alcoholic, it's my character." she pressed the rim of the glass to her mouth, but only in thought. "I do my best writing drunk. Which is why I'm thinking... I'm thinking about Jon Doe."

"Jon Doe is a term used for unidentified victims." Will offered. "Not the murderers."

"Like I said." her golden stare hit him with all the weight of a woman scorned. "If I find him first. Jon Doe."

Will bowed his head. Her rage knew no bounds. If sitting in a room with Chilton had caused her mind to kill him, then the gravity of her morbid confirmation was heavy. She meant every word, and her imagination left no idea unturned. He didn't doubt for a second that in the moment, the little writer would kill and get away with the murder. If she could chase him down in nothing but a big t-shirt and sleep-half-drunk mind, she'd be a force to be reckoned with, sober.

"You shouldn't say that out loud." Will commented dryly, removing his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose.

"I've been saying it out loud for years." she stared at the drink in her glass. "I'm a killer. I kill people. I create people to kill people. And I am the people that are killed. I should go back to my ward, clearly I'm schizophrenic."

"Having known several schizophrenics," Dr. Lecter ventured. "I can confirm that you are, at least, of the high functioning kind."

She laughed, her innocent, girlish giggle. It was hollow, though, and somewhat forced, like she appreciated the humour but couldn't quite feel it.

"I'm just thinking of his motives. What- How-? What could obsess a man to think this way? Is it me? Did I ever meet him? Or is it the work I've written? Maybe I've struck a chord in him. Maybe I've painted a picture that he sees when he closes his eyes. Maybe I've replicated some - horrific memory, accidentally written a scene from a crime he's been involved in... Maybe that's... I don't know."

"I'd say it's you." Will commented. "Maybe more the fact that you're on a different plain to him. There's- malice, in his work, but it's precision, and passionate. He adores you. He wants to create your world. He wants you involved in solving them, which is why he keeps contacting you, why he applies such - delicacies, into the murders. Things only you can see. Why he's made them personal, with the last one being your worst fears... And this one..."

He paused.

"You're his god, and your novels are his bible. These murders are an offering on your own personal pew."

"Shouldn't I be...Goddess?" she quirked her brow. "That doesn't make me feel powerful."

"What does it make you feel?"

"Stupid." she took a long sip of her drink.

"It's not about power. It's about the message." he met her golden eyed stare. "What where the these killings about? At their core. What were the stories? What were the motives?"

"Oh, Will, I can't-..." she looked at Dr. Lecter, who'd sat forward upon Will's line of questioning. "Can I?"

"I think you can." he replied with an encouraging nod. "Em can, if Willow cannot."

"You really aren't helping the idea of my schizophrenia, here." she told him with a small smile. She took a very long drink and rubbed her lips together after, as if numbing her mouth to the words she was about to say.

"The first murder he committed was the third murder my killer committed, but it was his perfect trial. He'd gone through his, evolving, his escalating stages, found out that he wasn't fond of bodily fluids, his optimal excitement came from being in total control. Strangulation. Suffocation." she swallowed a mouthful of nervous saliva. "I don't usually talk about this... You're going to have to forgive if I use first person."

"I'd say I'm used to it." Will told her in a dark way.

Her lips twitched. Then she took another drink.

"It was - the one that set him off. This woman. His first perfect kill. He was a homeless guy and he saw this woman eating lunch. She was clearly finished, so he asked to have the rest, nice, polite, she wasn't with anyone so she couldn't have been embarrassed... and she sat there and ate it all to spite him." she supressed a burp. "She watched him starve while she finished food she didn't want."

"And the batteries in her uterus?" Will prodded, and the Doctor's eyebrows rose.

"To charge her." she replied simply, ignoring the look she was receiving. "I told you, you had to be there."

"Usually am."

"Which is probably why you aren't flinching from it." she scowled playfully at him. "What did you see, when you saw that?"

He shrugged a shoulder.

"Bugs and batteries. Don't go together."

"Sure they do. Those bugs crack open and start devouring what they've been embedded in. It's - just. Can you not see how that's-? I mean, she let him starve, it took it out of his control. So he fed her up and tried to take away fro her what she'd once denied him."

"I see it." Will agreed. "I just don't feel it."

"Well... that's because you haven't read it." she said with a wiggle of her brows. "Only twenty five ninety five at all good outlets."

"Bugs are organic." Will said with a small grin at her shameless self promotion. "They're living. They nest. They move. Batteries are not. They don't match."

"Looky here, Mr. FB and I." she pointed her flask at him. " _She_  said something to the effect of needing it more than him because she needed energy for all the important things she had to do, so... batteries. To charge her. He was mentally disturbed, it isn't my fault." she drawled the last part with a twist to her lips, a joke only half offered.

"The dirt was...?"

"Cause of death. He shoveled it into her face to stop her screaming. And, I guess- spoiler alert." she told Dr. Lecter. "There were two different kinds of dirt. The dirt in her esophagus was nutrient rich to encourage growth for the bugs he hid in her tonsils. The dirt on her hands and under her nails was not. It bore high levels of metal... basically it lead them to narrow down their precarious list of potential sociopaths and that's how they caught him. I can't remember what it was."

"The second one, the twins." Will took a short breath in. "He wasn't- disgusted, by them like you imply the book killer was. It was the message he wanted to get across."

"What did you get from the message?"

"I'm conflicted." he told her, and ducked his head to rub his temples. "I can hear echoes of  _your_ killer and the  _Encompassed_  killer at the same time. Which why I need to figure out who is saying what."

"That can't be easy." she inclined her head. "Sorry."

"Don't apologise."

"I will apologise." she scowled at her beverage. "The twins' death is from the book Dr. Lecter is reading now. The twins were killed because they were lovers... I mean, he was married, but she wasn't. He had already killed his instigator with the dirt and he was rapidly gaining speed. What he wanted was motives. He convinced himself that he wasn't killing any one bad - these people had it coming. To, uh, his mind. My mind. Are you sure I'm not clinically insane?"

"Yes." Hannibal said with a small smile.

"He took her cervix." Will pressed. "The twin. He tortured the man and made her watch. Why?"

"Because it grossed out a lot of people. I don't know. These killings are - superficial, Will. I just wrote them, I wasn't connected to them. They are  _clinical_ to me. The third murder was one of my first, and I've told you I hated that character. It was a book based on a stable boy and a noble's daughter in this bizarre best friendship - courtship... He was the king, but only for about an hour. I let him have his moment, this thing he'd worked all his life for, what he'd killed and backstabbed to get... Then I killed him. He didn't deserve to have a kind death, dying fat and happy and rich. I wanted him to suffer, so I could've gotten him sick, but it wasn't quick enough. He was a self centered child, he didn't deserve" her entire expression changed.

"He was...  _greedy_." her eyes glazed, and went up. She appeared to be reading something on the ceiling, her lips pursed like she was looking for words.

"Em?"

"The fourth killing was a nightmare I had about aborting my baby." she went on with a small twitch under her lower eye. "I was watching myself do it and I was mortified. Not that I'm against abortion. It was the way I did it... with a shoehorn. So I wrote a little thing to get it out of my head and I hated her, too. This character, this woman, this mother, who'd kill her own baby before wearing the stretch marks and the extra weight. She was a throwaway, a moment I got lost in the crevice of my own brain... And then she was the pinpoint. I made her everything." she paused.

"Because she was so used to being..." she blinked, lurched up from her chair, taking short steps, brow drawn low in concentration. She wasn't muttering, exactly, but her mouth was moving like she was talking to herself. Finally she turned to address Will.

"Lavender, historically, is the flower that spoke of devotion or distrust, depending on with what flowers you coupled it with. Floral language plays an important part in the earlier stories - I was going through a symbolism thing." she was dreamily speaking now, looking like someone had just whacked her around the head with a shovel. "And he chose lavender for devotion. For me. Distrust for her. The last- that..."

She hiccupped.

"Bert." she caught her breath like she'd been shoved in the diaphragm. "That-... That was from a different series. Not  _Encompassed_. It was a different book, one set in an... era, that sacrifice ran rampant in. That was the way to offer the god of wisdom and sight - uh, premonitions - to offer a head..." she wasn't making sense, and they were both fairly certain it had everything to do with how much alcohol she had consumed. The realization fully seemed to dawn on her then, making her mouth turn into an unhappy line. "Bert is dead."

"Yes." Hannibal said gently. "He is."

"Oh." she drained her glass, wiped under her eyes, and set the crystal on the table. "On that note, I'm going to throw up and go to bed. Which I realise is a charming visual for you both, my apologies. Goodnight."

"Do you need help navigating the stairs?"

"You'll hear me if I do. I could probably use a good concussion right about now, any way."

"Don't say that." Will said quietly.

"Well, it'd be nice for me, at least." she patted his shoulder on the way past. "Good night, gentlemen."


	6. Wrath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The inordinate and uncontrolled feeling of rage which may lead to self-destructiveness, violence, and hate.

"Good morning." Em offered from the doorway.

Hannibal had risen early to make breakfast; his sleeves were rolled up and he was in his apron, tending to sausages on the pan.

"Good morning. How did you sleep?" he had to turn to confirm she had heard - she just smiled sadly. Her eyes were red and she looked more dead than alive, curled into a jumper too big on her tiny frame. She was otherwise dressed, the ends of her black hair were damp from a shower.

"How did you sleep?" she at least returned the curtosey.

"All things considered, my five hours were a good five hours. Do you like sausages?"

"I've never had them for breakfast."

"You are deprived." he shoveled them onto a plate.

"I can't cook anything that doesn't involve a microwave or a toaster." Probably not the best way to frame the follow up question. "Can I help?"

"Please, sit." he put her plate in front of her. "You look exhausted. Coffee?"

"Three sugars, please."

"Sweet tooth." He accused playfully, and she smiled for him. "Will is already on his way."

"Good." she nodded slowly. "That's-... that's good."

"Willow." he said as he slid the coffee over to her. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Nope." she sipped her beverage. "Oh, this is lovely. You're lovely."

He smiled at her.

"You're still drunk."

"And the world keeps spilling. Spinning. Sorry." she giggled into the rim of her coffee, and inhaled the fumes. "Yum. I love your coffee, Hannibal. The machine's pretty too. You are pretty."

"Thank you, I think."

"Don't think. You are. Lovely cheekbones and hands like- Hey, did you say Will was coming?"

"I did."

"Oh good. I like Will. You like him too, right?"

"Of course I do."

"Oh good. Good." she nodded, sipped some coffee. "This hang over is going to be horrific!"

"I can imagine."

"I've been mixing drinks." she beamed. "Invited Jack to the party when the rum was gone. Hey, when is Will going to be here?"

He tended to sausages.

"Soon."

"Good. Hey, Hannibal?"

"Mm?"

"Thanks for letting me stay."

"You are most welcome."

"You don't really make me feel safer. You know?" she paused, staring intently at his face. "I like having you around. It's better than being alone. You know?"

"I do."

"But you don't make me feel safer." there seemed to be a point she was making, but she got distracted by the coffee and started complimenting the pretty coffee machine again.

"I should like to think I make you feel much safer."

"Oh, a little, I guess. Not much. Thanks." He served the sausages and eggs with toast that she stared at for a long second, with a frown.

"What's the matter, Em?"

"I've never had sausages for breakfast before." she scrunched up her nose, then laughed. "Have I said that already?"

"Yes."

"Whoops. It's okay. Smells good. I'll eat them any way."

And she did. It was almost painful to watch her navigate the fork to her mouth. Not once but twice she missed and scraped the prongs on her front tooth, and she pinched her lip to bleeding with the repetitive utensil to mouth swing.

"So..." she swallowed a hard mouthful, pulling a face.

"Don't you like them?"

"Texture's funny." she mumbled, and twirled her fork in the eggs.

"This is how you make sausages for breakfast." he replied. "I made them myself, with heart."

"Oh... - th-that's good. I wish I could-... I- uhm... Make sausages."

"You can make sausages." he reminded her. He wondered how much she was actually aware of. "I might just need to give you a hand."

"Y-...Yeah..." he didn't leave it unnoticed she stopped eating, then, setting her fork down so carefully it didn't make a sound. "Uh, Dr. Lecter, I - I had something I wanted to - say. About...  _Lounds_." and the particular way she spat the name inclined the doctor to believe that she did in fact, have a history with the redhead.

"I was taught if I had nothing nice to say, I shouldn't say it." he said smoothly.

"I wanted to explain." she looked up at him, her expression child-like. "I shouldn't have hit her, but I'm not sorry."

"Was that what you wanted to say?"

"No." she gulped her coffee. "I wanted- to say... That, she is... Really  _nasty_. She had it coming. I've known her for - a long time. And she knows me as E.M... As Em." her head tilted.

"But she didn't make the list. Bert's- ... She didn't make his list, but she knows both of me... And I wouldn't put it past her to kill someone for a story."

"I don't think Freddie Lounds is the  _Encompassed_  killer." he told her, quite frankly.

She fixed him with a surprisingly serious look.

"There's an interesting theory for you." she murmured, then straightened, brightened, as there was a knock on the door. "Do you think that's Will?"

"Yes."

"I'll get it!" She bounced out of her chair, cracked her hip on the counter, and threw the door open to let it slam on the wall. "Hi, Will." and she appeared to be trying to sink into him, her arms about his waist. He startled, and paused a moment, before returning the favour. When she didn't let him go, he tucked his cheek on her head in an effort to ground her.

"Hi, Willow." he said, and she adjusted her cheek to hide her eyes in the folds of his jacket.

"Missed you." she said, muffled, and his heart broke a little.

"I... Missed you too."

He met Dr. Lecter's eyes, conveying his worry, and the doctor inclined his head slightly, turning to busy himself with getting his coat, meticulously do up each button.

"This is going to be a stupid question..." he said mildly.

"I'll give you a stupid answer." the promise was said in good spirit.

"Are you okay?" his hands involuntarily squeezed her shoulders, and she returned the favour.

"Abso- _lutely_."

He sighed slightly, and tucked his face next to hers.

"I'm tired." she confessed in a whisper. "So tired."

"I know." he soothed.

"I had these - dreams." her voice cracked, and she turned her face slightly. He adjusted so that his eyes didn't cross when he looked at her. "I dreamt in shadows. In memories stretched together, distorted. I dreamt it all in Timothy Bell's blood. It consumed me. Blinded me. I could see this face and it was just - horrific - familiar - muscle and melted skin... I was drowning."

"That does sound exhausting."

"And on top of it all, I'm hung over. Well, still drunk. Mostly still drunk."

He cocked a smile, but it was only to acknowledge her humour, not because he found it particularly funny. His hand cupped the back of her head and his spine straightened.

"Anything you need, Willow."

"I think..." she swallowed. "Could we just pretend that we're totally okay with being affectionate today? I'm not usually... But I'm having a bit of a hard time... letting you go."

"I can do that." he knew the intimacies of her aching heart, and would of course allow it.

If she had been miserable he would've sought her out to fix the hollow in her chest or turned tail and ran off. This was better; being the support and knowing what he said would heal her, help her through. Her expression was so sad, he could barely stand it. He wanted to wipe away that sadness, scrub it right off her face, have her smile at him once more.

"I wanna go in your car." she told him with a bright smile. "You can drive me, right?"

"Sure."

"I'll gonna go pass out in the backseat, okay?" she pressed a quick kiss to his cheekbone, her clumsy hand dipping into his back pocket to steal his keys.

Hannibal just rose his brows, watching her teeter dangerously to one side as she unlocked and climbed into Will's car. She pulled off her jumper and tucked it under her head as a pillow, and they didn't see her resurface.

They had gone in to go over what they had missed when Willow had walked out of the crime scene. She signed a novel for Beverly Katz, posed for a selfie with her, then sulked in Jack's office.

It was Hannibal that had to coax her into sleep. Will was too familiar with being so frightened of what crept up on him in dreams, he knew too well what it meant to evade sleep to keep focus. So he allowed the eye rolls and head jerks up and down, let her anxiously pace the small room, feeding her energy drinks from his stash.

"That's enough." Hannibal took the can out of her loose hand, and she mumbled a protest.

"I'm awake." she said, blinking bleakly up at them both.

"You'll encourage a heart attack." the doctor told Will. "Let me handle this."

"I'm not to be handled." she scowled playfully up at him. "You're pretty, but not my type."

"Em." he said in a gentle, firm way. "Willow."

"Yus?"

"You need to sleep. You are running on nothing but sugar."

"And caffeine. I'm awake. I'm fine."

"You are not fine, and you're hardly awake." his eyes flicked between hers. He put his hands up on her face, making her gaze droop down to him. Her chin dimpled, and one hand touched his wrist.

"Don't be this way." she said very softly. "Don't be so warm with me."

"Why not?"

"I don't-... I'm not used to it. I can't." she tried to pull her face from him but the pads of his fingers settled behind her jaw, anchoring her in place. It helped, of course, that she didn't struggle very hard. "Don't be _warm_  with me, please."

"Willow. You need to sleep."

"I don't. I don't need to." she swallowed a nervous mouthful, sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and chewed it. "I'm fine."

"You tell me you're fine, but I never asked. Come now. Lie down."

"I don't want to."

"Lie down, Willow."

"No. No." she put her other clammy hand over his.

"Are you scared?"

"Of course I'm scared. I'd be sociopathic if I wasn't. He killed Bert." she hiccupped, shut her mouth and eyes, leaning into his palms, squeezing his wrists. "Don't be  _so warm_ with me,  _please_."

"Willow. You are in a safe place. He can't get you in here."

"He can get me in  _here_." she tapped his pointer finger, of which was resting on her temple.

"If you have a nightmare, I will wake you."

"You won't."

"I will. I will sit right here and keep an eye on you."

"Thanks, Edward, but I'll pass."

"It wasn't an offer. I'm telling you. Look at me." she scrunched her eyes. "Willow. Open your eyes, please."

She pulled on one of his hands and it landed on her knee. She squeezed his fingers for bravery, then pulled her head away from the remaining hand and cracked open one watering eye.

"I don't  _want_  to sleep."

He just replaced his hand on the back of her neck, and eased her into laying down on the cushions. She exhaled a long held breath when her temple hit the material, tears squeezing out between her lashes. He went about taking off her boots and putting her feet up on the couch with clinical hands directing her legs. He tucked Jack's huge winter coat around her tiny frame and dragged a chair over to sit beside the couch.

Will and Jack, who could not hear the muted conversation, watched on as the doctor proceeded to cross his legs at the ankle, fold his arms, and peer at her over the arm of the couch. She opened her eyes once more to check he was there, smiled when she found him, and almost instantly passed out again.

* * *

Will dropped her off and stayed for a quick council with the doctor, nothing over ten minutes. Em had been quiet since rousing from her snooze to violently empty the contents of her stomach into the toilet, and had stayed quiet all day as she sobered up. She didn't offer any help and she didn't bother getting off the couch until they had to go to Hannibal's, which he once again offered to her as a safe house.

They found the box because Will nearly stepped on it on his way out.

Hannibal cut it open with a pen knife, and some little creature flew out. Will swatted at it, before realizing it was a hornet, buzzing angrily around his head.

Inside the box were a bunch of carefully bound flowers above a series of bloody photographs, clearly taken in great haste. Most were unidentifiable. The rest were shaky and blurred at best. Not-so-neatly printed on a shock of vibrant blue cardboard was a series of numbers, latitude and longitude.

"I know you now." Willow said, her hand curled protectively around her water filled glass. She peered around Hannibal's bicep, her expression completely unphased. "I've got your motive, Jon. Won't be long before I get you."

Will flanked Hannibal's side with a frown.

"What do these flowers mean?" he tried to see past them, to identify the photos.

"Daffodil. Well, a breed of it." she fingered a petal very carefully. "It means: 'Return my affection'. If I'm his god, I'm offended that he thinks a bunch of flowers is enough to woo me." her face hardened, and she looked up with narrowed eyes at Dr. Lecter.

"I suppose we have to take these in to Jack. My dear Jon knows where I'm staying. We're potentially in a bit of trouble."

"It would appear so." the Dr. wasn't sure if he was impressed with Willow baiting him, or the murderer finding them. "You... You were overly affectionate today."

"Yes sir. My Jon doesn't like it. I had to do something. I figured it out last night, but..." she shrugged. "I had to try."

"You have the motive?" Will was relieved. He wasn't sure how much longer he could study the photos or the mounting pile of bodies.

"Yes I do. I told you I characterized best when I was drunk. Well last night you left, and I got very, very drunk." she gulped the water. "Better get to Jack before he leaves the office. Or before Jon makes a move, whatever."

They filed out of the house, Dr. Lecter carrying the box, Will fussing for his keys, Em still trying to sober up.

Will's car was buzzing. The entire thing was filled with angry hornets, every possible entrance taped shut. His grill was a solid silver wad of duct tape, and the exhaust had a tennis ball squashed into the entrance and taped over that.

"I suppose I am driving, then."

"I'd say so, Doctor."

* * *

"Jack." they collectively swooped into Jack's office with the energy of a thunderstorm. The little writer was flanked by them both, her chin raised, eyes partly narrowed. "I've got the motive."

"You have?"

"Yes, I have." she waited until they all sat, taking a seat beside Hannibal rather than beside Will. "Will helped me realize it. But I didn't want to say anything in the event I was wildly wrong. I was drunk when I - to speak your language, I  _profiled_ him." she rolled that around her mouth like it was covered in sand.

She waited a moment, gathering the words she felt most fitting.

"He's modeling them after the seven deadly sins."

"What?"

"Gluttony for holding out on a starving man to feed herself past her tolerance for food. Lust between siblings. Greed from a man who wanted to brace the top of the hierarchy. Pride from a woman who would kill her child for no other reason than to preserve her figure. And- sloth." her voice cracked. "For a man who spent the better part of his life... Sitting on his bum, writing novels..."

"So what's left?"

"Envy and Wrath. I believe his plan... His focus... That's now shifted. He clearly has a problem with Will... But he might be confused, because I'm staying in Dr. Lecter's home." she put her hand out and squeezed the back of the chair closest to her. "I only got it because Will said I was his god. The books were his bible. And when I started talking about why these murders were committed in my novel... I realized I had been punishing them for the things they did."

She heaved a huge, world weary sigh.

"I created them all. I gave them personalities, histories, beliefs. And then I punished them. It's very first testament, really. I don't know how I didn't get it earlier."

"Envy and Wrath." Jack studied the photos that had been presented in the box. "This looks like wrath to me."

"He doesn't see it that way." Will murmured.

"He cracked it because I was all over Will this morning. So that's his envy too."

"Are you saying you realized he was watching you?"

"It was a long shot. But I knew if he was, it'd piss him right the hell off. So I did it. I think - I think maybe he's confused. Maybe he thinks his sin is wrath but the jealousy this has provoked..."

"It makes him re-evaluate himself." Will finished. "Which upsets Christmas."

"It shifts the whole damn calender." she told him with a quirked smile.

"There's a calendar?" Jack interjected.

"You had to be there." Em replied, not even bothering to look his way. It became apparent to him then the Em and Will were very much on some other wavelength, speaking in their own language. Will was inspecting her face; not her eyes, but her expression, the twitch in her mouth and the set of her jaw.

"If he really was counting down-" Will mused.

"He's lost his structure." Em nodded. "If he really is just like a kid-"

"He might throw a tantrum." Will rubbed his face, and said under his hand: "It explains the scene."

"I'd say it does."

"Does it remind you of-?"

"Not even remotely. You don't think he'll develop-?"

Jack's eyebrows hitched. Hannibal watched on curiously as the empath shook his head, answering her question before she had finished a sentence.

"No, no, he won't. He can't. You're-"

"His god, I know." She took a pause. "Let's not worry about that part of his psyche, shall we? We've got bigger concerns. There's a lot of room for this to turn into an envy kills wrath, wrath kills envy, situation. Or maybe he'll save me the trouble of hunting his ass down and kill himself. I think I have a character who-"

"Willow." Jack said flatly. "That kind of thing? Best not said in my presence."

She flipped her hair to look at him.

"If I decided to pick up a shovel and go on a killing spree, you would never be able to pin it on me. A little vicious chit-chat isn't enough to hold in a court of law. It's called hear-say, and it can be stricken from the record. Quit psycho analysing  _me_  and work on  _Jon_."

"Why," Jack said slowly. "Did you refer to him as Jon?"

"You don't want to know." was Will's dry retort. He chewed his thumb, and asserted: "He won't kill himself."

"I've had suicidal characters before. It's possible-"

"Was Timothy Bell-?"

"Tom Blithely."

"-Suicidal?"

"No. But he hasn't been exclusively Tom in all his killings, has he?"

There was a moment - an understanding. The writer sized up the empath and he very readily returned the favour.

"We should go to the latest scene. See what we can see." Em mused, and looked over to Jack. "You might have to drive... Hannibal's car is very nice, but it's not very big."

* * *

Four cats, seven big dogs, three little dogs, two ferrets, a budgie, three turtles, two snakes, and a horse; twenty three abducted animals.

There was an abandoned brown sedan by the barn, having been left on and run down from fuel. It had hit a Great Dane, which had been alive when they first arrived. They family who lived on the property had heard some noises and caught the attacker running from the scene. They owned six of the now dead pets, including the ferrets, which had a knife plunged through both stomachs, pinning one to the other.

The horse only had half a skull - he'd hacked at it's spine with an axe that was tossed haphazardly to the side, still bloody. None of the cats retained their tails but some were alive - no one found the tails. The little dogs had simply been crushed under a heavy boot; the bigger ones bore the gashes of knives.

The budgie's head faced the wrong way, its tiny body left on the dashboard of the abandoned truck. The turtles had all had their shelves removed, stuck with toothpicks and pins, one remained alive, but not for long. The snakes had been tied together and left to struggle in a box.

"Why?" Em murmured.

"He was angry." Will couldn't make himself look at the dogs, so he stared at animal control trying to subdue the snakes to untangle them. "Offerings."

"I can't help feeling this is a 'woman, look what you made me do' kind of situation." she drawled, dripping in bitter venom.

"Yeah. That too." Will looked over to her. "You okay?"

"Nope. You?"

"Got any whiskey in that magic bag of yours?"

"For you dear, of course I do." she presented him with a half empty bottle. He took a long gulp and shook his head as it burned his insides.

"Thanks."

"Anytime."

* * *

"So we're off to see the Wizard." Em said tightly. It was only a half hour after they'd arrived at the crime scene - they would just catch Chilton at the office hours.

"The wizard?" Hannibal was driving his own car - Jack had been called back to the lab by Katz with some important information he needed to see.

"Chilton." Will told the doctor in a darkly amused slur. "Lions, tigers... bears."

"Oh my." Hannibal murmured.

"I have not consumed enough alcohol to effectively deal with him." Em may or may not have given Will an assessing once over. He had taken enough draws from the bottle to be buzzed, pleasantly staring back at her with a ghost of a smirk on his face. "He's one of my first inspirational go to guys, you know."

"That sounds vaguely sexual." Will mused.

"Oh, I fantasize about him, alright. My favourite frequent fantasy is about stabbing him under his jaw and skewering his tongue to the roof of his mouth."

"Em." Will put a hand around her wrist. The car bumped and he lurched, his cheekbone clashing against her knobbly shoulder. She just snorted and put a friendly arm over his shoulders. He may have leaned into her side a little bit.

"I'm not sorry." she told him warmly. She looked at Hannibal - who was watching the friendly cuddle with hiked eyebrows - and began to list the reasons of why Chilton was hated with all due conviction. "He's a sleaze, a sexist, not to mention incompetent, insensitive, _rude_ -"

" _Em_." Will put his hand over hers, around his shoulders, not looking up at her, but past her. It was too close to look at her. He liked that.

"What?" she tipped her head at him. "You hate him too."

"Only when you're around."

"Lying doesn't become you, dear." she patted his face fondly, and he rolled his eyes slightly, releasing her wrist and swung his uncooperative body up to his side of the vehicle.

* * *

"I cannot show you to him, unfortunately."

"Why not?"

"Timothy Bell was released from my custody yesterday to a minor security facility in Maine. It was reported earlier this morning that he had escaped."

"Excuse me?" the little growl that came out of Em would've made a smart man pay her certain respect. Chilton was a book smart man, of course, but when it came to the wrath of women being scorned, he lacked finesse.

"He escaped." he repeated with a smile.

"When were we going to be informed of this?"

"I sent the papers off yesterday."

"You couldn't pick up a phone?" Em shot at him.

"It's protocol. I informed you. I've done nothing wrong."

"You  _knew_  he was a crucial part of our case."

"'Our' case, Miss Hammond?"

"Yes,  _our_  case! Did I stutter?"

Will put his hand out onto the back of hers. The touch was gentle enough that she startled, glancing down at it, exhaling whatever fury had simmered under her skin. Will shook his head slightly, and while she replied to that with a scowl, she sat back in her chair, kicking one leg over the other.

Hannibal noticed that she was eyeing off his letter opener, and likewise put his hand on her frustrated bopping knee. She gave him a 'really, you too?' look, but sighed and patted his hand any way.

Chilton ate it up.

"Are you telling me you have nothing to give us?" Will said flatly.

"I wouldn't say that. I did spend months with the man. Perhaps I could offer my services -"

"Dr. Chilton." Em said in a very loud voice, garnering his instant attention and abrupt silence. "Are you a behavioural analyst?"

"In addition to esteemed psychiatrist."

"I thought all your pretty doctorates extended only to the mind?"

"The physical is a mirror of the mental, lovely girl."

The muscle under her left eye twitched.

"So you'd say you're quite versed in the physical language of the body?"

"Yes. I'd say that."

"Oh good." and she calmly popped up and swiped the entire contents off his desk, taking a second swipe to spread out the chaos in the opposite direction, smacking loose whatever she'd missed the first time around. "Analyse that."

And then she walked away.

* * *

Will had quite a few things to say to Jack Crawford about not informing them of Timothy Bell's release, but Jack had only found out a half hour before they stormed the office. Beverly was there with papers in hand, her mouth in a tight, unimpressed line.

"The DNA found at his crime scene was compromised, but it still matched him at an astounding percent, and he openly admitted to the murders." Jack told them. "The DNA you procured from the break-in at your home was a full match. Indicative of a brother."

"Jacob Bell. I have met him. Jesus Christ." Em put a hand over her eyes, turning her forehead to Dr. Lecter's shoulder. "I _knew_  I knew him."

"You  _what_?"

"Ugh, I knew I had. I knew it. I told you -" she lifted her eyes to Will. "-well, not in any way you understood... I was dreaming in blood. In memories. They were all twisted. I remembered his face, but not his face."

"The face in muscle and blood and melted skin." Will remembered. "Exhausting."

"Exactly. I dreamt in Timothy Bell's blood. Literally." She started pacing the office, a hand on her hip, the other at her head. "When his little brother went to prison he requested he see me and apologise in person. He was ... Awed.  _Childlike_. Got me to sign his wrist and said he'd tattoo it on. I didn't even think - he didn't even make the list."

There was a long silence. She thumped her fist on a wall in a half hearted display of anger. Will and Hannibal had a few more things to discuss with Jack, but she couldn't hear them. She finished the bottle in her bag and left without another word, stopping by the female toilets to curl up on a closed lid and cry for a while.

She took her time, containing most of the noise whenever the door swung open or closed. She waited until she was calm - the sun had gone down - then splashed her face with water, waited until the puffiness had lessened around her eyes, then went back to see what she could do to help catch the bastard.

* * *

Hannibal wouldn't hear of her going to a lonely hotel room. Jack had cited it would put him in danger, if Jacob Bell knew where he lived, but Hannibal only casually implied that Willow was not to be left to her own devices in a potentially suicidal state of mind.

Willow, preferring the company of anything other than misery, encouraged the idea by not denying it.

"So I'm sitting here, mildly inebriated." Em drawled casually, tipping her head back to the couch. "And I'm developing Jon Doe's character."

 _"Profiling_ Jacob Bell." Will was quick to correct her.

"How's that coming along?" Hannibal enquired.

"I could use an ear." she lifted her head, spied Dr. Lecter. "Or two."

"I have an ear to spare." he offered with a secret smile that no one else in the room could quite figure out.

"I should hope so. I was counting on it." she didn't miss a beat. "I think I'm going to die."

A beat.

"How does that make you feel?"

She shrugged.

"I've done everything I've wanted to. Never wanted to travel. I wanted to write. I wanted to finish my  _Encompassed_ series. Now I guess... I'm in the series... And that's okay. Poetic, maybe."

She took a long drink from a flask she had offered to the both of them, but was politely declined.

"The only other thing I really wanted to do with my life... I wanted to publish something that joined E.M Hart and Willow Hammond. You know?" she nodded to herself. "Marry the two of me. E. M. Hart deserves to have a face that isn't constructed on conspiracy theories. I don't want the fame, but I want the recognition. I want... I want people to know that a kid like me wrote books like that."

She hiccupped.

"Bert's dead. My family's dead. I... I wanna die. Don't gimme that look, I'm not going to off myself, but-... I wouldn't mind dying. I'm tired." she punctuated the notion by a jaw-clicking yawn. "Anywhosies. I think he'll attempt something with one of you. I'm sorry if that's upsetting, but that's what I think."

"What else do you think, Em?"

"Willow." she nodded. "My name is Willow. And I think  _he_  thinks you two are  _competing_ for me. Yours is the envy. It's what he sees. I think he'll pit you off and one kills the other... And then I'll be so upset I'll kill the victor out of rage. Ours is the fury." and she toasted herself. Will didn't understand, but Hannibal got the Game of Thrones reference.

"I don't know what murder he'll go through with, though. Something Tom Blithely has done, seeing as how it's his brother. That'd be fitting, but he hasn't exactly stuck to Tom before, so..." she put her head down. "I hate how easy it is to do this."

"It is impressive insight." Hannibal offered, refilling her empty glass with the last of the wine.

"Are you trying to get me drunk, Dr. Lecter?"

"No, you do that by yourself." he smiled on her, and she returned it, shaking her head slightly.

"I don't think he wants to live." Will muttered. "I don't think he wants to get away with it... I think he wants you to write him as his own character, the same way you did for his brother. I think he wants you to kill him. I think... I think you're safe. You're his god, you can't bleed, let alone die."

"So you think you two are playing for envy, and I'm going to kill him?" she scoffed. "How funny, that he's setting me up to kill him, when I'm planning to do it anyway."

"Em." Will said softly.

"My name is Willow." she stared at him with both brows cocked. "Go on. Tell me I can't do it. You know what that'll do?"

"Make you want to do it more. I know. You have a problem with authority. I wasn't going to say that." he got up and sat beside her, hands folded at his belt buckle. "I was going to say that killing someone rips you up. It... ruins, a part of you and- "

"No, it rips  _you_  up." she corrected. "Because you feel what resonates when you kill someone. What the family goes through. How the police will charge you. Your profile. I kill people and write about the fallout."

"It's not the same thing."

"I'm aware of that." she leaned closer to him. "But you and I won't be on such different worlds for very long. I plan to join the statistic. I'm not scared to wreck my soul."

"Willow." he said again, more darkly this time. "You don't know what it means to have your soul wrecked. You're a good person."

"Please. I'm a drunk. The only family I have are all dead and they've all killed someone, amirite?" she swayed, pinning Dr. Lecter with a look. "'Sides. I've got nothing to live for anyway. Bert's dead. He's dead and I have to go and send him off tomorrow-... Ah, balls." she tipped her head back, swallowing down thick tears that threatened to overcome her.

"I'm drunk." she decided, and put her hand over her eyes. "This is your fault." she motioned vaguely at the good doctor with her half drunk wine.

"Bert's funeral is tomorrow?"

"It is." she looked a little green, a little sick. "I don't think I want to go."

"Funerals allow us time to grieve with those who feel the same loss." Hannibal told her softly. "I think the time to mourn him will be good for you. You do not have to keep yourself together for our benefit."

"Of course I do." she replied instantly, and stared at him as though he were crazy for suggesting it. "I don't want to go. I've made up my mind. I would rather deal with Jon than say goodbye to Bert. I can't, I won't. Not alone. I can't recognise that, not now. Later. After we catch Jon."

"Jacob." Hannibal reminded her, and she shrugged one shoulder.

"Willow." Will said slowly. "Would you like me to come with you?"

Drunk eyes barely managed to focus on his face. He was staring at the floor between his knees, hands wrapped tightly around a glass of whiskey.

"I couldn't ask you to do that, Will."

"You aren't." he glanced at her, cocked a shaky smile, and looked at his drink. "I'm offering."

"Attending funerals can't be fun when you're acutely aware of people's feelin's." she drank whatever was left in her glass.

"Definitely not fun." he tipped his head until he was on her axis, leaning his temple against the back of the couch. "I don't want you to feel alone when you aren't."

They shared an intense moment. She closed her eyes, exhaling a harsh: "Ah,  _balls_ ," while his hand went out to touch her shirtsleeve. She bit into her cheek and sniffed loudly, blinking rapidly.

"I'd like it if you could." she told him thickly.

"That's all well and good," Hannibal mused. "But how do you intend to get there?"

"I'm not too fond of bees." she mentioned absently.

"Hornets."

"I'm drunk, shuddup."

"I will drive." Hannibal not so much offered, as told them both. He got to his feet, placing the stopper in the crystal bottle they had been returning to all evening.

"Hannibal -"

"I insist."

"I can't ask you to-"

"It would be an honour to pay my respects to this man, and it would give me peace of mind to help you through the grieving process. How we grieve after the death of a loved one is paramount to the people we become in a world where those people cease to exist."

Willow's expression softened.

"That was...Beautiful."

"It is a mantra I've held dear for a very long time." he toasted them both with the dregs of amber liquid in his glass and drank them. "If we have to be there at ten o'clock, I think it is time for bed."

"Yeah. I guess." she patted Will's knee, then used it like an anchor as she rose onto her feet. Hannibal took the glass from her before she let it fall from lethargic fingers and waited a moment for her stance to steady itself. "I'm fine. I'm fine."

"Are you, though?"

"Yup. Sure." she scruffed Will's hair absently, then patted Hannibal's arm, making her way to the door. "I just-" she paused in the doorway, back turned to them both.

"What's wrong?" Will instinctively jerked as she turned - her expression was entirely open. Her golden eyes were veiled with thick, hot tears, that broke the line of her lashes and slipped over her face. "Willow?"

"You are both - both of you, the kind of characters I'd create to soothe my mind." she exhaled what could pass as a laugh. "Spending time with you makes me feel even more insane than spending time in Jon Doe's head. But I like it, a significant amount more. Even if you're both  _so warm_  and it _hurts everything_. Everything _hurts_. I feel like I'm melting, here."

"You're drunk." Hannibal reminded her gently. "Not melting."

"I know." she swallowed. "Please. Please still be real in the morning. I can't lose anybody else. I just can't. Please be here. Please be... warm." she giggled to herself, blew them both a wobbly kiss, and retreated to what she had claimed as her room.


	7. Envy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The insatiable need to covet someone's traits, status, abilities, or rewards.

The first time she woke up that regrettable day was because Hannibal had a warm, dry hand on her shoulder. He gazed softly down at her under the hazy glow of the lamp - it was still dark outside. A siren blared in the distance, announcing urgency, and the red of the lights momentarily filled the room, lighting his face like that of a cheap horror monster's. He smiled slightly - which was slightly terrifying - and watched her come into full consciousness, before he addressed her.

"Do you need to throw up?"

"N-...Not that I'm aware of." it came out half hoarsely whispered, in a rush she isn't sure he understood. She closed her eyes as the room tilted off it's natural axis. "What time is it?"

"Quarter to five. You were screaming."

"What?" she cracked open one very sleepy eye.

"I assume you were having a nightmare." he told her, and sunk into a graceful crouch beside her bed. She became aware that she has two tightly balled fistfuls of sheet yanked up to her chin, and sweat swamped at the small of her back. She also noted Will in the doorway, in tiny shorts and a slightly damp, crinkled t-shirt. He looked a little bit like hell warmed over.

"Was I... screaming words?"

"Yes. But not enough to make sense."

"Jesus. Sorry." she unwrapped one hand from the sheet and patted her face, which was wet. From sweat or tears, she couldn't say. "I- I'm sorry. I thought I'd stopped dreaming like that."

"It's alright. You needn't apologise." his hand fondly squeezed her arm. "We were concerned that Jacob Bell had come for you."

"That hadn't actually crossed my mind." she mumbled, and spotted a dark shadow in Will's hand. "Are you- packing heat?"

"...Yes." he clicked the safety on.

"So clearly the idea that he was coming in here was serious."

"We thought you needed the rest more than the worry."

"Yeah. I guess."

"There are armed cars outside, for peace of mind."

She hummed an agreement, not really perturbed if there wasn't patrolling officers on the premises, she was busy squinting at his choice of pajamas, with his embroidered pocket and Lecter emblem.

"Is everything you own  _so..._ fancy?"

"It's in my character." he joked. A resounding yes if she ever heard one. She rubbed the satin over his forearm and smirked to herself.

"Very intimidating, Dr. Lecter. I think Jacob Bell would've been very upset, had you appeared in your satin vigilante costume."

"He has a knife." Will offered, and Dr. Lecter's lips curled slightly. "He beat me here. I was across the hall."

"Impressive for an ameture slueth. Vigilante. Hero. Take your pick." she sat up slightly, rubbing her eyes. "I'm not going to lie. I'm still tired. I'm still going to sleep. I trust you to keep me safe." she aimed it at Dr. Lecter, because it was his house and from what Willow had observed, a man capable of stabbing someone in the head if necessary.

"If you want to shower, you are welcome to it."

She didn't feel entirely comfortable showering in his home, but she was less comfortable sleeping in sweat in the fancy shmancy bed.

So she bid them both goodnight (again), gathered clothes, and found the bathroom. The shower was scalding hot to the point of intense pain, but Willow liked that. Not the pain, just the simplicity of feeling the burn. She had numbed herself for such a long time, feeling anything at all was a good thing.

She dressed in her own pajamas and found them wanting. How she ended up in the clean shirt of Hannibal's that was in the bedside table was a mystery, seeing as she was still just a little bit drunk. What was even more mysterious was the fact that she'd crossed the hall and knocked on Will's door, pushing it open and shut behind her before she could think about maybe, not, doing that.

"Will?" she whispered.

"Willow?" she heard the hammer cock back into place, and the safety switch on. She smiled privately to herself for no other reason than he couldn't see it.

"Uhm, don't take this wrongly. Yup, good English. I'm still a little drunk." she fiddled a moment with the door handle. "Can-... Can I sleep with you? Not like - to  _sleep_  with you. To... Sleep, with you. No mixing of bodily fluids. Is that okay? I can leave."

There was hardly a pause.

"No... Stay." the blankets ruffled and she could faintly make out that he'd flipped open the covers. "Can you see?"

"Not really." she admitted in a murmur, and put her hands out, taking slow steps. She had just knee'd the mattress when the light clicked on and he saw her shirt.

"Is that...Dr. Lecter's shirt?"

She fiddled with the too long cuff. Her shorts were shorter than the hem, a fact she became painfully aware of.

"Well, he wasn't using it..."

There was an oddly fond twinkle in Will's eye as he clicked the light back off and wiggled back on the bed.

"I'm only here because you have a gun." she told him, and tucked her feet next to his.

"You're like a space heater." he grumped in return.

"Which is why I'm wearing very tiny shorts. Like yourself, Mr. Graham. Now sleep is for the weak, and right now I'm the weakest."

"I don't think you are." he responded and shifted to lay on his back. She could feel him, tense and wide awake behind her.

"Will?"

"Yeah?"

"Would snuggling make your brain turn off?"

"No, thank you." she could almost hear him put his tongue in his cheek. "We are, collectively, too hot."

"Reow." was her theatrical reply, before she passed out.

Will was a liar.

* * *

Waking up the second time that day revealed the special agent had gone and cozied up to her side, burying his nose behind her ear with his rough cheek on her chest. He had an arm tucked around her waist and one calf hooked over her knee. She'd threaded her fingers through his curls and had one hand braced over his forearm, her thumb absently stroking.

She would've thought he'd be inducing a heat stroke, but the blankets were all bunched at the end of the bed.

She drowsily lifted her head to realize that knocking had woken her up. Knocking on her door, not his. And while Willow was indeed a strong, mature person, sometimes she liked to have moments of weakness. So she closed her eyes again and pretended to be asleep.

The knocking sounded at Will's door and he grunted at it. It creaked as it swung open, and there was a long pause.

"Ah. I see."

Will lifted his head, inhaling loudly as he went, sleep drunk and confused. The hand tucked at her waist drew up to rub his face, and Willow took the hand from his head to hide her eyes behind it with a groan.

" _Why_ ," she dragged the word out. "Am I conscious?"

"It's eight thirty."

"Jesus. _Nooo._ I'm not going. I don't want to. You can't make me." she rolled over and shoved her face in the pillow. She was now pressed tightly against Will's torso, and one of her legs twined to hook around the back of his knee.

"Is that my shirt?"

"I don't want to go."

"Willow." he chided, and strolled over to lift a section of hair that obscured her face, peering at her pouted expression. "Do you really mean that?"

She cracked one eye open at him.

"You're already  _showered_  and  _ready_?"

"Yes." he seemed to be amused at the confusion and disgust on her face.

"How? It's - the ass crack of morning." Will just snorted and rolled out of the other side of the bed, his spine popping. "Hey-  _nooo_ \- I'm  _cold_."

"You have to get out of bed." Hannibal informed her. "I'm making breakfast for you both. Then we are leaving."

"I need a shower." Will mentioned, gathering yesterday's clothes.

"You may borrow a suit of mine for the funeral." Hannibal told him. "I should have something to fit you in that cupboard." he nodded to the simple door at the end of the room, and Will sleepily paced over to it.

"I don't want to go." Willow mumbled again, and stole what had been Will's pillow, until he found it necessary to utilize her breast for that instead. "Go without me. I'll make the wake." she curled around the feather cushion, trapping it between her thighs and hugging it tightly to her chest. If she inhaled Will's apple shampoo scent on it, that was her own business.

"Willow." Dr. Lecter sat on the edge of the bed, his expression soft. "You have faced so many fears in such a short space of time. It is unfair to ask you to go, but you will regret it if you don't."

She managed to open one golden eye to look at him.

"It's unfair to ask me to be self aware at this time of day." she retorted, and he smiled for her. "I'm not...  _scared_ , of saying goodbye. I've said it before to my parents and sister. It wasn't hard." she tucked her head on the pillow instead of beside it, but hugged it tighter still.

"Then what is it?"

She gulped.

"Facing all those people. They'll know. I didn't slice his head off, I didn't cement his body to a table, but... It was my design."

Will had just emerged from bending into the cupboard with a blue shirt and dark grey pants in hand, and halted all movement, his shoulders tense.

"They'll all be Bert's-... His friends. His family. They'll all have read what I've done. He wouldn't have talked to them if they hadn't. I was his biggest story. His runaway success. He was so proud of me... And I killed him, even if I didn't start the chainsaw. He died by association."

"You didn't do anything wrong." Hannibal told her. She squirmed until her face was hidden behind the collar of her borrowed shirt. Her body was trembling. "Come out from there. You can't hide forever."

"I can try." she said. It took several long strides for Will to march over and pull the pillow out from her, making her cry out an indignant: "Hey!" and reach up for it like a child. He dropped the pillow to the side and caught her up in a hug.

She went wide eyed, but clawed his shoulders in reply, her breaths drawn in deep and loud, bordering hyperventilation. He smoothed a hand over her head.

"It was not." he told her firmly, and let her go. He didn't bother smiling, he just stared intently at her face. "Your fault."

She looked young. Impossibly so. A child in a man's too-big shirt, with blood shot eyes and the weight of the world on her shoulders. Will took the clothes he had salvaged and walked to the bathroom, physically removing himself from her before he started smothering her. He felt her acutely - recognising so many things about himself in the tired, drunken girl.

He felt she was just as stray as he was, and although it was, in fact, nice not to be alone, it was also just as confronting to see the parallels more clearly than if he'd profiled himself.

Hannibal put a hand over her hand and offered a very faint smile.

"You are not to blame. Jacob Bell is." he told her softly, and her eyes welled with tears. She very slowly lowered her head to his shoulder and brought up a hand to hide her face. He obliged by putting both arms around her, tipping his cheek to her head.

"But I am." she whispered. "I am. I designed it."

"The things in your head are yours." he murmured. "But you told me that once you put them into the world, they are the reader's to own. Remember that."

"It feels like a million years ago." she mumbled, and sighed heavily against him. "You smell so good."

"Thank you. Now." he smoothed a hand over her head, gently removing her hand from her face. She took a minute to regain her composure, staring up at him with watery eyes and a pouty mouthed stare. "What would you like for breakfast?"

"I'm not hungry." she winced at the clock. "I'll snooze a bit and roll into some clothes and into the car."

"You need to have something to eat. It'll make you feel better."

" _Food_  isn't going to make me feel better."

"My food will." he patted her hand. "Anything you name, I will make."

"Rum and coke would be nice."

He very briefly considered rolling his eyes at her, but fixed her with two cocked brows instead. She cracked a painful looking grin, dislodging tears from her lashes.

"Can I have pancakes?" she said, swiping the salt water on her face with an impatient hand. "Are pancakes okay?"

He caught a tear she had missed on his thumb, his smile warm.

"I will even add chocolate chips if you get out of bed now."

"You drive a hard bargain, Lecter."

"I'm well aware. Come on. Up. I hate tardiness."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?"

* * *

The third time she woke... she was preeeeetty sure she was supposed to be dead.

She cracked open a squinted eyelid and did a quick survey. What she saw was a little concerning, but only a little, considering the mass amounts of deaths she'd been exposed to in a little over a month.

And the concussion didn't lend much clarity.

Will was to her left, shirtless, the shoulder closest to her twice the size of the other. He had developing bruising on his skull and a series of bloody lines starting from glass imbedded at his hairline. The blood dragged over his brow, over his cheek, down his jaw, to plop from his chin, and finish midway on his - thankfully - moving chest. His forearms were burnt from the explosion of air bags, which he had mostly blocked.

He had been in the passenger side seat, half turned around to address her.

Hannibal was to her right, his lip split and nice button shirt smeared with grubby prints. It missed a few buttons at his navel, probably from when they reached in and hoisted him out of the car. He was minus a shiny shoe and his hair fell over his brow, hiding his eyes in shadows. She could see a long shiny bruise on his cheek bone in a suspicious fist shaped blue.

He had been driving to Bert's funeral

She was in the middle - staring forward, braced emotionally. When the brown sedan had flown into Hannibal's shiny black vehicle, her hands had instinctively come up to protect her head, and she'd squashed her hand between the window and her skull. It felt taut - swollen enough that moving her fingers would be very difficult, if not painful. The grinding in her bones suggested displacement, and she made a low sound as pain shot up her arm.

"Are you awake, sugar plum?"

"Now, now, brother..."

"She'll enjoy it."

A hand smacked the back of her head and she huffed, not expecting it.

" _Don't_." the cut down is cold and strict. Willow heard a small scuffle, a fist hitting flesh. "I'll kill you if you so much as touch her again, Tim. Or do you prefer Tom?"

"That's the thanks I get for owning up to your crimes." a rancid breath is in her face. "You're a shitty little brother, you know that?"

"I didn't ask you to take the blame." comes the quiet, but sincere murmur.

"But I did it any way."

"Out of brotherly love?" There's no reply. "Of course not. You just wanted the attention."

"Piss off."

"Envy is a sin, big brother-"

"You wanna die right now? Do you  _want_  me to kill you?" there's a moment of stillness.

"You wouldn't."

"Wouldn't I?"

"You'd probably just jerk off at me. Let's be honest."

"Fuck you."

"Or that. Wouldn't put it past you." there was a sigh. "Your present is upstairs. Go play."

"Is she conscious?"

"I'm not ungrateful for you giving me some time to perfect my work... so of course not."

"Well in that case... You're the best little brother a guy could ask for." creaking footsteps announce his retirement. He whistled a merry tune. Willow became aware that a door has shut and locked behind her, a metal scream evident of the heavy lock now in place.

It's cold. Under-the-earth cold. Through her lids, she saw warm yellow lights, but not naturally made. Her hands were cuffed to their respective armrests, but her feet were free. Not that she could do much with them. One leg felt like it had been pulled up around her head somewhere, the muscles loose and weak, painfully twitching.

Vaguely, she recalls researching torn ligaments, and the twitching knee cap is indicative of that.

There was a moment when she just reached out her senses and tried to figure out where she was. She tried to ground herself, to stem the flow of panic before it reached a crescendo and she lost her ever-loving mind to adrenaline. Sensitive ears heard a nervous breath, then a fingertip touched her neck.

"Don't touch me." was the bitter admission to consciousness.

"Hello." he whispered in return. "How good it is, to see you again."

"Can't say the same for you." it was now she was intensely glad she'd taken large gulps of whiskey before leaving Hannibal's that morning. The guilt she'd felt when he'd caught her didn't seem so bad, now. "Tell me what it is you plan to do between the three of us." her head lolled back.

"Jacob."

He smiled, stroked her throat with tender, trembling fingers.

"You speak my name, and I hear from you the voice of gods."

"Don't quote my own novels at me." she snarled, and wrenched her head away from his hand. Peeking out from under his sleeve was her tattoo'd on signature. "Answer me."

"Well... I had first thought you were shared between them. I thought - maybe, he's pretty, and young, so he would be your Lust, and the other one, he's wordy and book smart... so he would be your replacement for Sloth-"

"Mind what you fucking say about him." she sneered, her mouth uncontrollably shaking.

"Well, he was, I could see he was. You were nested in his home and you ate his food. I quite like him better a mentor for you anyway. I saw - I saw you kissing  _him_. The  _pretty_  one. Holding him. Driving in his car. And that reporter, that website said you were f-finishing each other's sentences, so it wasn't just me that saw you developing... an attraction, to your little FBI friend, there."

"Are you totally fucking insane?" she growled through her teeth.

"No, no... I'm not. That's the thing. The wonderful thing. I'm sane. I'm completely-"

"Out of your damn mind." she pulled hard at the cuffs on her wrists. "When I get out of here-!"

"You'll kill me." he smiled. "That's what I want. I'm sick."

"Oh, I had  _no idea_."

"Not in the sense you imply. I'm sick in my bones. Like Darryl." he softened, then, went to crouch before her, putting his hands on her thighs and massaging lightly. She bucked her knees to kick him and he pressed down hard enough make her wince. "You wrote Darryl as the original and I knew you'd founded a connection on a spiritual level with me."

"What the hell are you even _saying_?"

He didn't miss a beat.

"Everything you wrote of him was true of me but the name. We are the same height, have a big brother who love-hates us, we suffer the same illness."

"I can't even remember Darryl."

"We are insignificant, to you. But see, I did all these things for you. I followed all the instructions. I punished the wicked the way you wrote them. I did it for you." his fingers trailed over her mouth, and she snapped her teeth, nicking a section of skin that didn't break. He was unperturbed. "I did what you couldn't do, the way you wrote them. So this is how I die, for my reward. I want you to take me like you did him."

"Excuse me?"

"I want you to take me." he beamed at her, touching the tip of his bitten finger to his bottom lip. "Like you killed him. Darryl. Me. See? It's all the same. You wrote my brother but it was me all along-"

"Hang on, hang on, back up a second." she cocked a single brow. "You  _want_  me to kill you?"

"I knew you would need to be motivated. I knew that you were on the very verge of murderous. How could you not be, when you write what you write? That imagination has to come from somewhere. You had to be. Have to be. You were writing real people - you wrote me!"

"Oh, for fucks sake."

"I motivated you. You see it, don't you? I showed you how I understood. And I do, I understand you. You don't have to pretend any more. I know you're from another world. You wrote real people from afar to the tiniest detail! You wrote the twins - the model - the-... You wrote the King! The greedy king, you wrote him! And you wrote me - you wrote Tom, my brother. Do you see? You wrote the real and then I made it realer."

"You're dumb."

"N-No, no, I'm not." he was positively beaming. "See, I killed all the greedy, incestuous, prideful, gluttonous people I could in your way, I scared you in the worst ways, and then I killed Sloth-"

"The fuck did I just say?" she demanded. "Don't you talk about him. Don't you say another fucking word about him-"

"Or you'll what? Kill me?" his eyes glittered, almost transparently blue. "Like Darryl, though. Has to be like Darryl."

"I can't remember-"

"Darryl. He was sick in the bones and had thirty two stab wounds in the chest. He was a convicted murderer in  _Enraptured_ that Lindsey Chase spoke to, remember? He was in prison for killing and he was weak because he was sick, and then he provoked a visiting reporter and got stabbed? Thirty two times. In the torso. You don't puncture anything important until number-"

"I won't kill you." her gold eyes flashed. "I'll just  _hurt_  you. Call it panic. Self defence. No one will begrudge me. I'll leave your death to fate and the FBI."

"You have to." he studied the firm set of her jaw. "I killed Sloth. I killed Sloth. I did it. I did it the way you wrote it. You have to kill-"

"You? Yes. Heard you the first time. I'm still not going to do it."

"I know you can, though." he said roughly, huskily, momentarily holding her face in both sweaty hands. She jerked her head away, sneering at the look of sheer panic on his face. "I know you can-"

"Yeah. I am capable of it. Absolutely. From the second you decided you'd kill Bert, you were dead, you just didn't know it yet. I'm having vivid images of stomping on your throat."

"No, no, like Darryl-" he motioned to the blade tucked into his belt. "It has to be like-"

"Oh, you're assuming I comply." Her teeth bared in a terrible grin. "The question isn't how, it's  _will_ I do it."

"You have to."

"No I don't. And I won't." she sat back in her chair. "So -  _bleh_."

"You will kill me." he took her face in his hands again, and the only reaction he got from that was a clenched jaw and defiant eyes. His thumbs stroked her cheekbones. "I need it to be you.  _It will be you_."

"Welcome to the real world." she drawled from under the increased squeeze of his hand. "Things don't always go the way they're scripted. I'm not going to do it, and you can't make me."

That took a long second to sink into his brain, like it was thick muck sifting through fine mesh. She could almost see the gears behind his eyes, and the spanner she'd just wedged into those works. It was intensely satisfying, to see him frown the way he was.

He moved to Will, who had not yet stirred. He stared pointedly at Em, who watched him without blinking. She watched him put his hand on Will's throat - the shaky way in which he squeezed, experimentally choking him. It was like he needed the instruction of her novel to know what to expect - what to do.

He let go when Will made a wet noise and his head lolled in a half hearted, subconscious protest.

"If I kill him," he shoved Will's swollen shoulder. "Will you kill me?"

"No."

"What about him?" he turned then, to Hannibal, who regarded him with cold, bright, conscious eyes. "What about if I killed _him_? Your replacement for  _Sloth._ "

"I wouldn't worry about me killing you." she flicked her eyes to the still doctor. "My dear Dr. Lecter is a force to be reckoned with, I think. Not slothful in the least. In fact, I'd say sloth was probably about the furthest sin you could get to him..." she let her head roll back, staring at the ceiling.

"Prideful? Absolutely, have you seen the suits he wears? The shoes? Oh lordy. His outfits cost more than some of my rent. Greedy? Maybe not so much, but I mean, let's have a look at how many books and art and fancy pajamas he has in the house. Is it necessary? Really? Is he, lustful, maybe? Well, I can't really answer that without profiling him, and I've spent _so much time_ lately  _profiling you_. He  _is_  a man. I guess he must like to fuck on occasion. Speaking of, I wouldn't mind maybe, I don't know, giving him a go-"

"Don't -  _Please._  Please don't say that. Don't say -"

"Envious? I don't think that he has much to envy of any one else. I think he gets what he wants, you know. Carpe Diem and all of that." she glanced at him, completely unperturbed. "That's a European thing, right? You're like, Scandinavian, or something? I hear they make 'em big in-"

"I'm asking nicely-"

"But  _gluttony._  To feed one's self past the threshold of necessity. To _over indulge_. Ding, ding, ding, we have a  _winner._  You could chose any of the aforementioned and apply them to my doctor, there are literally seven possible sins to chose from with two being at least questionably interpreted, and you chose the one furthest away from him. Do you even know the sins?"

"Yes-"

"But you don't. You don't know shit about anything, least of all,  _me._ "

"I do so!"

"Woah, careful, Jacob, your pride is showing."

"I didn't-!"

"You sound pretty angry. Pretty  _wrathful_."

"You aren't going to manipulate me!" he hissed through his teeth. "I know what I am, and I am Darryl!"

"You are Jacob. And you are wrong."

"Stop it. Stop it, please." his hands went over his ears. His eyes were so wide she could see the whites completely encasing the iris. "Please, please-"

"You don't know anything." she went on. "Not one thing. You can't even get his sins right, how do you expect me to be proud of what you've done? How do you expect me to understand you when you've done it all wrong?"

Faintly, there were screams and muted laughter coming from upstairs. Willow swallowed a hard mouthful, her gaze only momentarily flicking to Dr. Lecter. He was studying her with an impassive face - something calculating and cold in his eyes. The lack of reaction to the entire situation gave her a certain confidence. A light bulb blew over her brain, the idea only conceived by that one calm stare.

"Tell me something." she said slowly, dragging her eyes up to the standing psychopath. "Jacob. Take your hands away from your ears."

He did.

"Do you love me?"

"With all that I am. Even the sick parts of me love you."

"Did you ever... watch me? In my home, I mean. Drunk. Writing. In the shower-"

"Never in the shower. I wanted to-... I wanted to."

"In bed?"

"I did. I did watch you when you were in bed. Could you feel me?"

"I could. Which is why I couldn't help but touch myself." she leveled him with a look. The blood drained from his face - he gulped. "Did you watch that, too? Couldn't you hear me, Jacob, all those little noises I made?"

"I-... No..."

"They were for you." her breasts were heaving with the effort of breathing. Trying to control the overwhelming need to dry reach. "I wanted you to feel me too. Did you watch me?"

"Yes." he averted her gaze, ashamed.

"So you saw me with my hand between my legs. Saw how I squirm."

"Yes."

"And you wanted me to feel you."

"Yes."

"I want you to feel me." she let her legs fall loosely open. "I want to see just how much attention you paid."

He audibly gulped. Upstairs, a girl screamed. Her pleads went higher, louder. Willow tried to think it was just a bad tv show, and the lapses in noise were ad breaks.

"You're tricking me."

"Am I?" her lips curled into the mere whisper of a smile.

"You have to be."

"You killed the only man to have ever taken care of me in a murder I once called the most violent I'd ever come out with... Taken hostage these two men who then stepped in to fill the void... and I don't want to kill you? Tell me, if you know me so well. Am I tricking you, Jacob?"

He shifted uncomfortably. There was a growing bulge in his jeans.

"Tell me, to which sin was what? Was Dr. Lecter Wrath or was his the sin of Envy?"

"Envy. He was Envy." he dropped his eyes to her exposed panties, then flushed and cleared his throat, looking up again. "He- would've wanted - what Wrath had... With you."

"Will was Wrath." she said, and chewed her lip. "Why?"

"...Wanted... He's... Violent in his brain." he shifted back, hands twisting at his belly. "Uh, he slip 'n' slides inside criminal minds... He's Wrath."

"I see." she hummed what seemed to be an understanding approval. "They could watch." she suggested casually.

"That would incur an envy in them, I'm sure. Make them want to be on top of me. Make them want to be in me. Make them want to have me plead their names because they can see how you touch me. Because you know how I like to be touched. Wouldn't that be grounds for their envy, Jacob?"

"Y-...Yeah." he was staring at her breasts, her crotch, her wet mouth.

"Don't you want to be with me once before you died?" her mouth curled further. "That could be a just reward for all the things you've done on my behalf. The hard lessons you've learned. Wouldn't it be nice, just once, or twice, have me claw your back and bite your shoulder? I'm a screamer, Jacob. Gods aren't exempt from sex, are they? Or fucking? Or making love? What will you do, Jacob?"

"I'd-...fuck you."

"Mmm. Well. You can't do that from all the way over there... Or can you?" the playful tease was accentuated by the smile that cracked across her face like lightning. She rolled her spine, sliding her hips along the chair, opening herself up.

"Gonna... wanna... fuck you."

"Well get on over here then, boy."

He fell to his knees and crawled for her, burying his nose in her crotch. He kissed her, inhaled her, lifted shaking hands to push apart her jacket and up her skirt. She trained her eyes on the top of his head and watched as he tasted her bellybutton, as he tore open her dress with a decided lack of finesse but growing urgency. He nibbled her bra and collarbone, panting heavily by the time he got to her face.

The kiss he pressed on her mouth was a millisecond, at most. It was tender and timid and he slowed down enough to frame her face with his hands and press several smaller ones to her cheeks, chin, nose and forehead.

"I want to feel you. Give me one hand to touch you with." when he started to protest, she said, very firmly: "I want to touch you, Jacob."

He unlocked one of her hands, keeping her slender wrist trapped tightly in his fist. He waited, half wincing, prepared for an attack, but she just grabbed his shirt and pulled him into a kiss. That one hand traveled over his shoulder - down to his crotch, giving him a brief squeeze - under his shirt to feel his heart pounding under his sternum. She touched his face, her fingers gentle and kind.

"Let it never be said the pen is mightier than the sword." she murmured, pressing those very kind fingers against his lips. He hurried to kiss them, his gaze locked on her chest. "Or that the sword is any mightier than the hand who wields it." she pushed her fingers into his mouth, letting his tongue roll over them.

Then those same kind, gentle fingers, curled behind his teeth, into the dip in his jaw bone. She looked into his eyes and made sure he was watching her, before yanking his jaw right out of the socket with a loud grinding crunch.

"I'm a  _lesbian_ , you  _idiot_." she caught the keys and kicked herself back, cracking the chair against the floor. He was screaming, holding his loosely hanging mandible in one hand and fumbling for the knife at his waist band.

She shoved the key in the lock but he dropped down on her, his weight sending all her air out of her mouth. She yanked the key out of the lock and stabbed at his face with it, trying to gauge his eyes. He was mostly unconscious from the pain, so she managed to dislodge him, wrestle the knife out of his hand, and stab him in the meat of his shoulder, severing the nerves in his arm.

He howled, and she managed to get the key in the lock. His fists came down on her stomach and face and she wheezed, no air in her lungs. She swung the knife and cut his hand, but he caught her cheek in a furiously thrown fist and her head spun to the side, a bright burst of white light flaring in her eye socket.

She shoved him and he tumbled, howling, while she rolled to the side, her hand throbbing, blood now pooling from split knuckles. She turned, struggling to her knees, lifting the chair to bring it down on his head several times, long after he'd stopped trying to crawl away. She was panting hard but still kicked him in the stomach while he was down, fumbling to find the keys hidden under his body.

She tended Dr. Lecter first, completely silent. As soon as she managed to wedge the key in the lock of his cuffs, one hand came up to hold her dress closed at the top. She sat back when he moved his now free hand to her shoulder, quickly undoing the bind at his other wrist.

"Smart girl." he commented, and touched her hair tenderly.

"More'n just a pretty face." she mumbled, and sat back with a small huff. "I'd say we're not going to make the funeral, Dr. Lecter."

"I'd say so." he knelt and inspected her eyes, her swollen hand, the way she was clutching her pulsing leg. "Your hand is broken."

"And my leg?"

"It'll be fine." he murmured, and looked up at the unconscious agent. She nodded, and he actively had to pull her into standing. She woozily swung forward and her wrapped tight arms around her.

"It's a crime," she exhaled. "For you to  _still_  smell  _this good_."

"You have a bizarre way of complimenting people."

He liked that about her, though. She pushed away, and they both waited while she found her balance and swayed a moment, then she turned to tend to Will's cuffs, and she was again, unconscious.

* * *

The fourth time she woke up that day, she woke up very sore, very dizzy, and very confused. She stirred to find the still unconscious Will Graham laying across from her, his head cushioned by his shirt. She was covered with a jacket that smelt criminally good, and she reached out a hand to touch his face. Her fingers feathered down his jaw, to his throat, and pressed in, blindly searching for a pulse.

He opened his eyes instead.

Relief flooded her - tears also flooded.

"Hi."

"Hi." he tried to lift his head, flinched, and couldn't. "Where...?"

"No idea." she put her hand on his chest, feeling his heart pound. "Are you okay?"

"Yes." he thought about that. "I think so. Are you-?"

"I'm fine. God, Will, I thought you were dead."

"I'm okay." his hand caught her fingers loosely. "What happened?"

"They drove into us. You smashed your head. And your shoulder is really messed up. Hannibal..." she lifted, but the world spun and she lay back down again. "I think he's okay. He left his jacket on me, so I'm fairly certain he's -"

CRACK.

Heavy bootfalls pound the floor above them. Guns were fired. A body hit the floor with an ominous slump. A second later, a girl screamed, and kept screaming.

Willow didn't have the energy to be excited, nor to be scared. She just tucked her face next to Will's, and he put his hand on the back of her head, supportive.

There was a minute with masculine shouting - then a revelation. Dr. Lecter was the one who directed them to the sub level of the establishment, to find the two of them curled up in each other. Her arm was protectively around his waist and over his spine like she was going to shield him from any more abuse. Will couldn't turn his head - his neck hurt - so she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw who flanked the bruised, bloody doctor.

"Jack's here. Dr Lecter's okay." agents milled around them. The aforementioned doctor got on his knees and kept his coat about her mostly naked self as she rose into sitting. "Where's the Bells?"

"Timothy Bell has been shot." he said gravely. "But he is alive, in custody."

"Where's Jacob?" she had just enough coherency to be aware he hadn't yet fully answered her question. "Hannibal... Where's Jacob Bell?"

He pursed his lips, a twist to his expression.

"... I'm sure that Jack will find him."

Something dark pooled in her iris, and she noticed that he appeared to have a series of bruises over his jaw, when she was sure he had only bruises on his cheek before. She lifted her hand in a staccato rhythm to apply gentle fingers to the new bruises. They were hot to the touch - fresh enough to have not yet swollen. She gulped, looked up into his maroon eyes with a tremble in her lower lip.

He regarded her with an impassive stare.

"Is everything quite all right, Willow?"

She took a moment to figure that out before offering an answer.

"I need a drink."


	8. Epilouge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue is a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature, usually used to bring closure to the work.

**Two Months Later**

 

* * *

 

Hannibal opened the door, and his eyebrows rose, a smile on his mouth.

"Willow, I wasn't expecting you."

"Dr. Lecter." she smiled, lifted a bottle of Chianti and two Tupperware containers. "I brought you dinner. And cake. Hope you aren't busy." her bruises were all gone, the swelling died down, but her hand was in a firm cast. It was nearing warmer weather but she still had her thin body rugged up tightly, though she wore a woolen dress.

"On a sunday evening, at five thirty?" he quirked a smile at her. "Profiling me, Willow?"

"Ugh, what an ugly word. I simply understand your character." she gave him a pointed look he allowed to wash over him, to sink into his brain. "We have a little bit to discuss, you and I."

"Do we?" he swung aside to let her in.

"I should also probably mention I have somewhere to be in an hour. This is a timed social call." she stepped inside with a casual air. "And I don't think Will would hesitate to come over and make sure I haven't gotten drunk and passed out in the guest room."

"I have no desire to keep you from your date with good Will." he chided, taking her coat from her shoulders. "Ah, you're in navy. Lovely."

"You'll make me blush."

"I very much doubt it."

"Don't ever doubt it. You're a charmer, Lecter." she turned to face him, a teasing smile on her mouth. "It's in your character." she lifted the bottle and box between them and he accepted it with a smile.

"Beautiful beverage."

"Don't drink it on my account. I got you something fancy from that Italian restaurant down the road. I'll go soon so you can eat it while it's still warm."

"Any particular reason for such a short visit?" he inspected the delicious looking meal. "Or the dinner?"

"I did it because _I'm_ trying to charm  _you_." she flicked the bottle. "I'm a spirits girl, myself."

"So I've seen." he showed her through to the sitting room. "Will you indulge in a glass of brandy?"

"I do have to drive to Wolf Trap in a few minutes."

"I have freshly squeezed orange juice."

"That'll do me. Thank you."

He motioned to a seat and she took it, turning so that she could watch him pace to the kitchen and back out of it minus the box and bottle. She accepted the drink but put it on her knee. He watched her settle a firm hand over it, and noticed that her eyes, for once, were sharp.

"Sober?"

"It's been a month since I had my last alcoholic beverage. I've been working hard." she cocked a victorious grin. "Having that bottle in my car was a little bit like hell on Earth. I swear I could smell it through the glass."

"You probably could." he took the seat opposite her, his own orange juice in hand.

"My girlfriend - well, I mean, we're 'seeing each other', whatever that means, she told me to buy white wine with cake. But Google said it depended on the cake."

"Don't fret. I'm quite certain it won't be the end of the world if I don't have the correct wine." Well, not the end of  _his_ world. "Now. You said something about trying to charm me?"

"I was going to be subtle about it. But I am not the most subtle creature."

"No, I'd say not." he watched her watching him, interested, shiny gold eyes studying him, profiling him. "Why would you wish to charm me, Willow?"

"I know who killed Jacob and Timothy Bell." she said it so casually, like commenting on the weather. "I'm writing a new book. It's called  _Devour_."

"These two things are related?" he asked, and may or may not have batted his lashes. Just a little.

Her response was a nasty grimace dressed up like a smile.

"The book you read of mine." she said dryly, wetting her lips. Her eyes flicked to his long fingered hands. "What was your favourite part?"

"I quite liked the entire thing, Willow. I hope this isn't to stroke your ego."

"I have other people to do that for me." she reclined in her chair, kicking one leg over the other in a nervous bop. Her face, however, betrayed no such anxiety. He had to applaud the control over her micro expressions. "See, I would've thought maybe you liked the death of Norman Jones. Maybe Jaques De Mort."

"I'm afraid you'll have to jog my memory." They were both playing the game. She had a good hand, but nothing to bet with. "I don't quite remember them like you do."

She licked her lips again, making his gaze flick to her mouth.

"Norman Jones," she said with a wide grin. "Was the younger brother of the twins earlier killed."

"How did he die?"

"Violently. All his organs were removed and burned. He was strung up by his feet and bled out in a slaughterhouse, like a cow." she blinked just once, and tipped her head to the other side. "He just wanted revenge on who outed his brother and sister. Never mind the fact they'd been murdered. Just that they'd been outed."

"A vigilante?"

"Mm." she lifted one hand from the glass on her knee and propped her head up with it. "Not a very good one, but his  _wrath_ knew no bounds. And Jaques De Mort... He was a lesser character, kind of just mentioned in passing. A previous case, the murderer. He was found out, drowned, revived, drowned, revived..."

"I hardly see how that applies."

Her smile widened.

"He had killed six people."

"How poetic." he said, and lifted his glass in a toast. He sipped his orange juice and although she lifted her glass in reply, she did not drink from it.

"I got a call from Jack not too long ago. About a month ago, actually." the muscle under her left eye twitched. "About Timothy Bell escaped from hospital, to be on my guard. But you know, the next morning he was found killed like Norman Jones, strung up to dry, organs all gone. Like someone had helped him escape just to kill him."

"How absurd."

"Yeah. That's one word for it." she swished the orange juice in the glass. He noticed her eyes drawn to the bottom, where the heavier sedative had created a sedimentary layer from her swirling it. "The funny thing about writing murders is that you pick up the strangest tidbits of information. I once killed a drugged man with strategically placed chopsticks through the eye sockets. It was one of my earlier pieces - it never made the final cut."

"Interesting." he noted.

"Oh, I was telling you. About a week after his brother had escaped - and died - Jacob Bell was found washed up in a river, his lungs all traumatized from spardoric revival. Jack wanted to know if I'd had any correspondence, if I had any clue to who the killer was."

"What did you tell him?"

"I had no idea when he asked me initially. If he asked me now... My answer may have changed. But seeing as it's been so long between murders I just can't bring myself to believe that he'll come back. He said something about the lungs being professionally tampered with, the extent of the torture was... Like from a medical student. Or maybe even a doctor."

He said nothing. Just sipped his wine.

Her golden eyes fixed on his maroon ones, and she stared at him unblinkingly.

"I think you said... you practise therapy 'now days', when we first met." she seemed to become aware she was treading very thin ice. She shrugged. "I thought maybe you might like to know. I told Jack I voted murder and failed attempts at suicide. Jack thinks it was one of my four stalkers."

His hand relaxed on the stem of his glass.

"And Will?"

"Oh, Will has his own theories." she sets the glass down without drinking it, pointedly scooting it away from her hand like she was disgusted by it. It sloshed, but didn't spill. "Of which I'm actually off to discuss with him now. Gonna walk his dogs. It was so good to see you again."

"Was that all, Miss Hammond?"

"Unfortunately, Dr. Lecter. Did you miss me?"

"Of course. Please, do come back for dinner some time. I'd love to hear more about this new book you're writing."

"I'm sure." she practically strode to the door, though she allowed him to put her coat on her, one sleeve at a time.

His hands lingered on her shoulders, and he could smell nervous sweat on her. The back of her neck was damp, her hair in ringlets from the humidity. It amused him, however, that she managed to give him a kiss on the cheek and a quick hug goodbye, before skipping to her vehicle and carefully peeling away from his drive. He lifted a hand in a wave and she returned it, her face visibly relaxed.

He quite liked that girl.

* * *

Nearly six months later, he received a neatly wrapped package. He opened it, and found a black, leather bound book, trimmed in gold, with a curly script declaring it  _'Devour', by Willow Hammond (E.M Hart)._ He opened to the first page to find a print in the top right corner, telling him it was one out of only three copies of it's kind. Written in neat ink on the cover page was this:

_Dr. Lecter,_

_I hope you thoroughly enjoy the 'adventures' of Carina Hellbent._

_Thank you for everything._

The strange thing, however, was that the book was not focused on the character of Carina Hellbent, but on the main character of a empathetic young FBI profiler Rile A. Owlish. It was a good read, it provided a psychological detail of the main character's spiral into insanity, as encouraged by the menial and unassuming supporting character.

It was subtle, but it was there, this untoward revelation that the friend was actually the foe. While Carina did not turn out to be the main villain or a cannibal, she did sit Mr. Owlish down and sneakily coerce him into some rather untoward revelations, and was the cause of most of his turmoil. He sat down with his own pen and paper to write a thank you for the impressive looking book, and had a thought.

He scrambled the letters of her name - Carina Hellbent, what name was that? Usually her names were so  _fitting_  - and thus, his own name stared back up at him. Carina Hellbent was Hannibal Lecter. An anagram, like she had written for Timothy Bell, turning him eternally into Tom Blithely.

He was rather inclined to make a certain fuss about this, but when the book was released a day later, the female character had been turned into a man, of the name Jack Crawford, who was not sneakily psychological at all, only abrupt, powerful and decisive. She had re-written the whole novel, complete with a very different ending.

The only mention of his name was Lecter Park, where a body was found in three pieces.

When Dr. Lecter next saw Jack, he seemed to be flattered by the ode to his name. Beverly Katz also got a special mention as a witness who gave over the information that got the gears turning in the Rile's head as to who the killer really was (as well as a signed copy with a lipstick kiss on the inside jacket.)

Will told him that Willow had only written that she treasured the time she had spent with him, and asked him to scramble the name Rile A. Owlish. He hadn't figured it out, but it took Beverly four tries to spell out:  _Will Is A Hero_. He flushed and cracked a wide smile at the good natured goading that followed.

In private, he confessed that he hadn't seen Willow since the fiasco with the  _Encompassed_  murders - she hadn't been in contact with him at all, aside from sending him a copy of her novel. If he hadn't idly wondered aloud why she chose to change the character of Carina into that of Jack and thus the entire story, Hannibal might never have been inclined to visit madam Hammond for a bite to eat later that same week.

She had Chianti waiting.

The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My 14 year old brother designed both the Sloth and Greed murders, so kudos, brother.
> 
> Thanks for reading.
> 
> All my love,
> 
> Aude The Third.
> 
> xx


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